


One world apart

by ElnaK



Series: Eternity for your pleasure [3]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Grieving, M/M, Season/Series 04, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 63,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5869516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElnaK/pseuds/ElnaK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alaric died, and now, Damon is a mess. A right mess. Ric's ghost watches as his lover is going from one pit of hell to another, and he can't do anything. That is, for now.<br/>Of course, while Damon is a mess, and is making a mess of things as a consequence, others are also making a mess in Mystic Falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eternity to fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> See? I told you. Sometime in January. Well. There it is. I'm not a liar.  
> *go hide in a hole*  
> If you kill me, you won't know what happens next.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set after 4x01  
> Have to add some days between 4x01 and 4x02

Damon stayed there for what seemed like hours, Alaric's body in his arms. Surely it was only a few minutes, but it felt like hours nonetheless.

After a while, he laughed shakily. Now every single instant of his life would feel like that. Hours for an instant. Eternity for a minute. Eternities, until he'd die, killed by a hunter, another vampire, or maybe even by himself.

It wasn't the same thing as when he had lost Katherine, all those years ago. With Katherine, he had been bitter, because he knew that despite his unwavering love, she loved Stefan more than she loved him. Back then, he hadn't known how much it was true, and he had hopped she loved him still, even if less than his brother. And he had known that in the end, he would get her back.

Waiting a few decades wasn't easy, and he had been bitter, but waiting was nothing to a vampire. Even if he had been young, back then, he had known it was only a matter of time before he got her back. He had done horrors to keep the frustration of the wait away, he had killed, slaughtered, and bathed in blood at times. But he had been able to wait.

Ice-blue eyes fell on the dead body in his arms.

This time, there was no waiting to do, no hope to have. Alaric was dead, and he wouldn't come back. Ever.

Without a word, Damon let the body on the floor to stand up. He checked he was still alone, not that he expected anyone to come to their locker unit in the middle of the night. He didn't want to have to explain why there was a half-burned corpse with open eyes in a coffin, nor why there was another corpse that wasn't in a coffin on the floor. Yes, he could have simply compelled anyone who would come and ask. But with the state he was in, he wasn't certain he could pull it all just right.

Glancing one last time at Ric's lifeless form, he wiped away the tears that were obstructing his sight.

He had to clean up this mess.

The coffin, the body, everything in the car. He'd cry later. He had cried already, and he would cry later, but not now. He had to go back to Mystic Falls, and to know what had happened for Alaric to die like that.

Damon knew there was only one explanation, but he didn't want to believe, not yet, not ever, that in spite of having lost Ric, he had just lost Elena too. He might not be obsessed with her anymore, he still cared for her. Actually, he now saw her as something as a sister. A true sister, not some sister-in-law bullshit because she was going out with his brother. She could be just as annoying as a sister.

The vampire didn't want to lose a sister on top of his lover.

Before driving off, direction Mystic Falls, Damon allowed himself a whole minute, sitting with his back against Klaus' coffin, so that he wouldn't see Alaric's corpse, that was laid on the other side.

“You're doing it wrong, man. As a human you kept on dying, and just when you became immortal and nearly unkillable, you went away for good.”

Of course, he wasn't speaking to Klaus.

Then he sprang into action, finding it easier to just ignore what had happened and drive like a crazy vampire all the way back to Mystic Falls. He had eternity to fall apart, after all. He could spare a few hours to learn if he really had more than one reason to end his life right now, right there.

Alaric wouldn't have wanted him to give up and kill himself.

That is, the true Ric wouldn't have wanted him to. Ric-the-psycho, on the other end... But Ric-the-psycho was no more. As was the true Ric...

Ignore the pain. Ignore the tears. Ignore the gloom.

Drive.

Fail to register the pain, the tears, and the gloom. Do it on purpose. He would allow himself to break down, only once he'll know how many reasons he had to do so. He would cry, and be hurt, but not for now. Not that it didn't hurt yet. It did. But he would ignore it.

Why?

Because he had to.

Because if he didn't, he would just go into a blood bath. He had to wait, so that he'd take it easier afterwards, and not start to slaughter anyone. Alaric wouldn't have wanted him to slaughter anyone without a reason.

What happened when Damon got back to the boarding house was... unexpected.

Though he was a bit relieved that Elena wasn't dead-dead.

It didn't make him any less sad, but it at least didn't make him sadder. Her death would have made him sadder.

After that... well, most of the Council got blown up. It wasn't him, he swore. He was too busy moping about the unfairness of life to murder anyone, lately.

After two days, Damon moved in Ric's appartment. Thanks to compulsion, no one asked anything.

Stefan raised an eyebrow at his decision, but said nothing. Elena tried to know if he was doing alright, even if she knew he wouldn't possibly answer “yes”. She wanted to help him, and he appreciated her willingness to support him, but she had enough going on with her new life as an undead girl who should definitely not drain her brother or her schoolmates of their blood. Stefan was determined to make her follow his diet, and Damon was feeling too down to be sarcastic.

He stayed there for a while, locked into Ric's loft, filling his nose with the faint scent of the man he had loved, staring at the clothes the hunter wouldn't wear anymore, glaring at the mirror in the bathroom because it wasn't his reflection that should be there, but Alaric's.

Stefan was bringing him blood bags, and always asked if he planned to come out at some point, less exasperated than worried for his brother. Damon could hear it in the younger vampire's voice.

After one week, Stefan finally got the courage to speak about it.

It. The thing that would possibly set Damon's off.

“What do we do about Alaric, Damon?”

The older brother stared at the younger vampire quite dumbly.

“What about Ric?”

Stefan's eyes went to the coffin that was still next to the bed. That had been there for one week. And that, if he let Damon do as he wanted, would stay there even once it'd start to smell.

Stefan wasn't sure that having the decaying body of his lover next to his bed would really help Damon to get over it. He was quite sure of the contrary, actually. And it wasn't the only problem.

The younger Salvatore looked back at his brother, trying to sound as cool as possible.

“You can't keep him here, Damon. And we have to come up with an explanation as to why he suddenly disappeared. The school is asking where its history teacher went, this time, and the sheriff can't just...”

“Tell them he's got some family business to attend to. I don't know, maybe his mother is dying, and he won't be able to come back. But he's staying there.”

Stefan frowned, slighty irritated.

“We have to bury him at the very least.”

Damon moved a bit, to stand between the coffin and his brother.

“I'm not letting him go.”

“Damnit, open your eyes, Damon! Alaric wouldn't want you to destroy yourself over his death. If you really can't stand his death, kill yourself, but don't wait for the madness of grieving to get to you and make you do things we both know you'd fall back into, and that are exactly what he liked the least about vampires. Don't go and prove him he was wrong about who he had come to see you as, and right about who he first thought you were!”

Damon took a step towards his brother and grabbed him by the collar, but no words would pass his lips. He knew Stefan wasn't completely wrong, and he knew that keeping his lover's body in an apartment that wasn't even his but the said lover's was everything but healthy.

He just couldn't let go of the coffin.

When he saw it every morning as he woke up, it did two things: first, it forced him to remember that Alaric was dead; second, it made him feel as if the hunter was still by his side.

And Damon simply couldn't give up on this.

He let go of Stefan's shirt, and went to sit at the dining table. Stefan joined him, a glass of blood in his hand. Damon took it gratefully, and emptied it before saying anything.

“Very well. We'll get him buried next week, but you deal with the formalities. I want a grave to go and cry upon, but not his name on it. He's gone out of town, he went back to Boston, to his family. I won't have everyone in Mystic Falls know he's dead, and I refuse to see the pitying looks on anyone's face. They might not have known we were together, it was still pretty obvious he was my best friend.”

Stefan sighed in relief.

“We can't have him 'go back to his family', Damon. Magdalena has been asking about him, and she'll know we're lying.”

Damon squinted at the mention of 'Magdalena'. With Ric's death his brain had almost shut itself off, and now he was completely oblivious to what wasn't about his dead boyfriend, a bottle of alcohol or a blood bag.

Stefan rolled his eyes, unable to believe that his brother was so deconnected from reality. Aparently, he had been waiting for a good reason to do that for quite some time.

“Magdalena Haguenhauer. Red headed. Deadly. A lawyer. And a bloody Falkenbach.”

Damon's eyes lit up for a second, before going back to a darkened state that had been theirs since the hunter's death.

“Right. Well, find something else. He moved out for no-one-know-what-reasons, and he isn't coming back. He told no one where he was going. Just don't make him... dead.”

His voice was strangled as he said the last word, but Damon had said it nonetheless.

It hurt as much as the first time, if not more.

“Just... do it.”

Stefan nodded, and walked to the door. He turned around one last time, as if intending to say something, but he eventually kept quiet. Damon wasn't yet ready to hear any kind of speech about how Alaric would have wanted him to go on without him. It was so obvious someone could have written it on his forehead with a permanent marker.

Once alone again, Damon went to fetch a new bottle of bourbon in the kitchen part of Ric's loft, and he gulped down two mouthfuls in a blink, wincing slightly as the taste of alcohol overlapped the taste of blood already present in his mouth.

His cellphone rang, but he didn't bother to answer. Either it was one of the supernatural gang of Mystic Falls, or it was Liz Phorbes, hoping to know beforehand if his grief was likely to end up with him gruesomely murdering someone tonight.

Alright, he might be a bit harsh on them. They were worried about him. Most of them. Maybe not Bonnie, and certainly not Tyler. Oh wait. Tyler was dead with Klaus. Right. That only left Bonnie. Strangely enough, the witch didn't like him. Wonder why. It wasn't as if he had killed her mother and her boyfriend. Oh wait. He had. But they hadn't stayed dead.

Then again, Alaric had tried to murder him a couple of times, and he still loved him more than anything. Even if he wasn't much of a fan of the twisted version of Ric that had taken over the very peaceful-if-deadly-when-needed-history-teacher.

No matter. What they didn't know couldn't hurt them. It wasn't as if anyone could tell he was inwardly harsh with the people who were worried about him right now.

Damon put the bottle back on the cupboard it came from. He walked slowly to the bed that had been Ric's, and let himself fall on his face onto it.

His nostrils flared as he smelled the faint scent the hunter had left onto the sheets. It was becoming fainter by the day, disappearing slowly as he slept in the bad, replaced by his own scent. But for now, it was still there. And somehow, it was enough for him to calm down a bit. Just enough for him to fall asleep.

As he dreamed, Damon found himself still lying on the bed, but resting on his back.

And the other person on the bed with him was blond, with blue eyes.

_“You're hopeless, you know that?”_

Alaric was lying on is stomach, his chin in his hands.

_“You're supposed to be alive, Damon, or at least undead. What's the point in brooding like you do? There's none! I can't honestly say I'm not happy that your care enough about me to grieve, but this is too much. You're only ignoring the problem, as if it would disappear one day.”_

Then Damon drifted into a dreamless sleep. Next to him, a ghost sighed, exasperated.


	2. Lonely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd rather not say anything.  
> Let's just say that... Ric is angry at Damon.
> 
> set in 4x02

“ _'No, really, Alaric, you're getting worried for nothing, I tell you. Look at me! See? I'm alright! Perfectly so!!!'”_

Ric stopped pinching his nose, and glared at the vampire he had been poorly-but-deliberately-so imitating. It wasn't as if Damon could hear him, anyway. Which meant that he couldn't see the dark look he and his glass of bourbon were at the end of either.

The hunter's ghost was currently sitting next to his (former?) boyfriend, just on the seat “that was taken”. Damon, glass of bourbon in hand, was certainly moping right now, and it was starting to get on Ric's nerves. Badly. It had been more than a week since he had died, and there he was, stuck in ghost-form, and stuck watching one certain black haired vampire brooding.

As much as he loved Damon and did not actually want him to just move on or anything, because well, it had been only nine days since he had died, Alaric was growing worried, and so, irritated, with his fool of a lover.

First, it had taken the guy one whole week and a shock treatment speech from Stefan to get the older Salvatore to leave his apartment and started living again. If it could be called “living”. And Ric wasn't thinking this because Damon was technically dead, so, you know, bad pun and all. No, it was simply that now that the vampire had walked the hell out of the loft that wasn't even his, but Alaric's to begin with, the hunter had found out that Damon had done so only to get stunned at the Mystic Grill.

Second, Damon was starting his third bottle of alcohol. Ric knew. He had counted the glasses, and added up, those glasses amounted to two bottles and one third. Damon had been at the Grill for exactly thirty-two minutes and forty-seven seconds, forty-eight now, and he had already gulped down two bottles and a third of bourbon. And of tequila. The hunter had never seen the vampire drink tequila before, but apparently, there was no more bourbon, and Damon was too desperate to have a drink. Or several drinks, as it was.

Third, the vampire had been keeping Alaric a seat, waving off both the sheriff and Elena, when they had tried to talk to him. Sure, it was sweet. But it was also a bit creepy, considering that Damon had kept his corpse with him in the loft. Next thing he knew, Damon would take the body out on a date.

Well, maybe not, but the hunter was too angry with the self-destructive behavior of his boyfriend to be rational.

Alaric pointed his finger at the glass that was making its way to the vampire's mouth, a crooked smile on his face.

“ _Of course, Damon, there is absolutely no reason for me to worry! It's not as if you were slowly becoming a drunk. A drunker drunk than ever. A drunker drunk vampire who to get really drunk needs at least ten bottles of wine because his accelerated healing would normally keep him soberish!”_

If there was a downside to being a ghost, besides the obvious, about being dead and all, it was that Ric was absolutely unable to interact with the world of the living. So he could shout or sneer at Damon all he wanted, the idiot wouldn't even know that he was there, watching him destroy himself slowly.

For the past days, he had been happy enough watching over his boyfriend, and occasionally the kids. At first, he had been more than satisfied that the vampire hadn't simply gone on a rampage and started murdering innocents once again. But this day, was too much.

It had been too long since he had begun to watch Damon act like the fool he was.

“ _'Ah, but, Ickle Rickykins, if I get drunk enough, maybe I will get hallucinations of you, and then, I'll be happy once again! Eh? What do you think of that, hum? Don't you want to talk to me again, Ickle Rickykins? That's a cute nickname, that, Ickle Rickykins! I shall keep it for later use, since I'm sure you hate it as hell and are wishing you could be making me stop saying it, Ickle Rickykins!'”_

The ghost glared once more at his lover, even if the words had come from his brain and not from the vampire's. That was how angry he was.

The silent vampire put down his glass of alcohol, gazing at nothing in particular. He looked like the world had come to an end, but had forgotten to take him with the rest of humanity / whatever-the-big-group-of-humanoid-supernatural-beings-he-was-part-of-should-be-called.

Damon looked lonely.

Alaric sighed, knowing full well there was no point, aside from venting his anger at his helplessness, in continuing to pretend that the vampire could hear him and was making a fool of him. Though venting his frustration was a pretty good reason to do anything, if you'd ask him.

“ _And I'm definitely not making a fool of myself right now. You can't hear me, you can't see me, and you surely aren't thinking of calling me Ickle Rickykins in the future.”_

The hunter squinted at the imperturbable and sad face of his lover.

“ _Though if you are, I must warn you that I will find a way to haunt you more effectively. Like, nightmares and all the crap.”_

It was lucky for Ric that every ghost on the Other Side seemed to have their own “other side”, so that they wouldn't see him act this foolisly.

Not that he knew that for sure. But for now, he hadn't seen anyone else, so unless they were avoiding him...

Ric rested his chin in his hand, elbow on the bar counter, readying himself to another half-hour of seeing the vampire he loved fall a bit more into despair.

Two minutes and six seconds had passed so, when a fiery red flash caught his attention near the main door of the Grill. The hunter turned around, searching for the colorful person that he suspected was his cousin, through the slightly blurry mist of the Other Side.

Magdalena, for it was truly her, was making her way to them.

Or, more likely, to Damon, since Alaric doubted very much that she knew his ghost was here with the vampire-that-she-also-didn't-know-to-be-a-vampire.

The lawyer, with her red hair and her red suit, went to sit down onto the bar stool that her ghost of a cousin was currently using.

“The seat is taken...”

Damon's voice had stopped her, and the Falkenbach moved to another stool. Unlike Elena, she didn't go for the one on the other side of the vampire, but for the one next to Ric's. There was one empty bar stool-that-wasn't-so-empty-but-how-would-they-know between them.

The young woman asked for a drink, and then looked at the dark haired man who had talked. She remembered him from the day she had come into Mystic Falls. He was... He knew Ric, she was sure of it. Maybe he would know why he had disappeared so suddenly, without a word, only the excuse that “he had to go” that had been given to the school.

Even Landyn hadn't been able to tell were Alaric was, and that in itself was alarming. Landyn always knew where the members of the Saltzman family were, if only to keep an eye on their more disturbing habits. When one went off the radar, it usually meant trouble.

If such a thing happened to Alaric, it was more than disturbing. Her cousin wasn't one to be up to no good. He was dangerous, yes, maybe he was even the most dangerous of them all. But he wasn't dangerous as in easily tempted to act rashly. Ric was one of the moderate Saltzmans.

But such a thing had happened to Alaric, and so it was alarming.

If her cousin had gone off the radar...

Magdalena couldn't help but think that something had happened to him.

She closed her eyes for a minute, drinking her cognac. The more the young lawyer thought about it, the more she was convinced that she had to talk with this man, Damon... Salvatore. Yes, it was his name. She opened her eyes, and turned slightly to look at him.

He had several empty glasses before him, as if he had drunk more than one type of alcohol. He didn't look like he was drunk yet, but the smell said otherwise. Still, he behaved well, if a bit depressingly.

His voice had sounded very matter-of-fact, she mused, almost automatic.

As if he hadn't been really thinking as he had talked.

Maybe he was a sad drunk.

She wondered if it had anything to do with Ric's departure.

If it was actually a departure, and not one of the definitive sort.

“Who is it taken by?”

Damon turned slowly his head towards the woman that had talked to him, eventually remembering that she was Alaric's cousin from the freaking-cursed-family. He'd have to watch his tongue.

“It's Ric's.”

He glanced mournfully at the empty seat, and looked back at his glass of bourbon.

“He should be here, but he's gone.”

Gone, as in “dead”, said ghost thought dryly. But hopefully, Mag wouldn't take it that way.

It was bad enough that when the two of them looked at each other, they were actually looking through him. 'Ever had people look at each other through you? No? Well, all you need to know is that it feels really, really awkward.

Magdalena, as it was, was a bit suspicious of the way Damon had talked, but not for a bad reason. The young woman ordered another cognac, and decided she would get as many answers as she could from this man, for she was certain there was more to it than he said.

After all, Alaric “should be here”, but wasn't. The man had said it himself.

“You miss him?”

Damon raised a mildly disbelieving eyebrow at the hunter's cousin.

Said hunter winced as he took the full blow of that raised eyebrow. He definitely didn't like being looked through.

“Ric was the first friend I had in years. My best friend. More.”

Unbecknown to the vampire and the living Falkenbach, the only dead Falkenbach in the Mystic Grill stiffened at that. There was so much suffering hidden in that last word.

He knew. He could hear it.

And from the look on Magdalena's face, she had heard it too.

The lawyer's voice was softer when she spoke again. She didn't want to be overheard, not in a little town such as Mystic Falls, not about what Damon Salvatore's tone implied. But it wasn't all. She didn't want to hurt him more than he already was.

If her cousin had found peace with this man, then so be it.

Magdalena had to rein in a shaky laugh, as she mused that maybe homosexuality was the solution to the family curse. If they all ended up with a partner of the same sex, there was no way they'd be able to pass on the curse to the next generation, since obviously, there wouldn't be a next generation.

It really wasn't the time to laugh about that.

“Do you know why he left?”

The young woman saw a painful grimace take over the man's features, and she decided not to prod too much yet. It still hurt, it was quite obvious.

After all, Alaric had left Mystic Falls, his work and his life. But it wasn't all that he had left behind.

This man too had been left behind.

Damon didn't answer, in the end, but after a time, and another glass of bourbon, he looked again at Magdalena Haguenhauer, the Falkenbach who had known Alaric for years.

“Tell me about him, please.”

The young woman stayed speechless for half a minute, surprised, but eventually smiled warmly.

Ric's ghost, on the other hand, squinted at his cousin. He knew very well what she was doing.

Mag was definitely trying to get close to Damon, to make him talk. The only question was, was she doing it for her own knowledge, or because Landyn had asked her to? If not for Landyn specifically, maybe for the family in general? If it was the case, it did not bode well for the peace of the town, once she'd know for sure that there was something fishy about his “leaving”.

Because if there was one thing the hunter was certain of, it was that, if his cousin had decided she'd get to the bottom of it, there was no way in hell or heaven that she wouldn't find out more than he was comfortable with.

“Once, when Ric was three years old, his parents took him with them to the main house. My mother, his aunt, told me that after three hours of talking, Diane suddenly noticed that her son wasn't anywhere in sight. Everyone went to search for him, and they eventually found him behind a bush, looking in silence, eyes squinted, at a garden snake...”

Oh well, the ghost thought... If she managed to make Damon smile, he wasn't going to complain.

 


	3. The name of the ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damon is behaving like a foolish vampire.  
> Oh, wait, he is a foolish vampire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't behave like Damon does, it's bad for your health.
> 
> And by the way, yes there is going to be some more brooding.

Damon had ended up in the cemetery.

Alone, in the cemetery. Which wasn't surprising. He had always been alone. And when he hadn't been, it had never lasted. There were those people who didn't really care, like Katherine. And there were those who just died. Like Enzo. Like Rose. Like Andie.

Like Ric.

It wasn't particularly curious, considering the children had insisted upon holding some sort of ceremony, with flying paper lanterns and everything, to account for the dead. Their dead. Those they had been able to bury, and the others too. Those that hadn't left behind a body. Those that had been buried in secret, with compelled undertakers, and a false name on their grave. When there even was a name.

That, that was Alaric's case.

So now, Damon was sitting next to a grave with no name at all carved on it. There was only one word: “Friend”.

What a show of friendship, indeed, to not even acknowledge the identity of the one that was buried there!What kind of friends were they, all of them, and him included, to write that on the hunter's grave? What friends, indeed?

What lover? That was most like it.

He was the one who refused to see that Alaric was dead. He was the reason why there was only written “Friend” on this grave. Him, and no one else.

After all, they couldn't risk someone seeing the grave and the name “Alaric Saltzman” on it, when the man was supposedly away. They could not say “he is away, but he has a grave”. It didn't work like that. It wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Rebekah had killed Elena, thus killing Alaric. Esther had made Alaric mad, and even more dangerous, so he had had to be put down. Klasus had taken his family problems to Mystic Falls, causing Alaric to be caught in it.

Really, Ric's death was the Mikaelsons' fault.

But this?

This parody of a grave, this “Friend” that meant nothing, this place with no name, this was Damon's fault. He knew it. It was written there, just behind this stupid “Friend” word. It wasn't written in words, it wasn't something that you could see, but it was written there. Those who knew the truth could see it, Damon was sure.

This... thing.

This pannel that said “it's Damon's fault.”

Everybody who knew the truth could see it, he was sure of it. It wasn't written in words, it wasn't visible, but it was there, and it screamed “It's Damon's fault! He's the one who made me like that! He is the reason for this parody of a grave!!! He's the reason Alaric is neither properly dead nor alive. He's the reason Ric can't be dead, even if he is not alive. Damon made me like that!”

It screamed loudly, and still, Damon remained there, sitting on a bench with three bottles of alcohol. One was bourbon, the other vodka, and the third one, he wasn't sure, but it was strong. And every time he took a new gulp of alcohol, the grave screamed louder.

It was difficult to think, with all that noise.

Good.

Damon took another sip of... of what, already? He didn't remember. The cemetery was too dark to see the color of the alcohol, he was seeing double so he couldn't look at the name on the label, and the taste... At this point, there was no taste anymore. The alcohol had no taste anymore.

Or maybe it did.

Yes.

Yes, or no. In a way...

It tasted of fire. And, and of noise. Yes, that was it, it burned his throat, and it made the grave scream.

The vampire reached for yet another bottle, and drank a bit more. He wanted the grave to scream. He wanted it to tell him al that he had done wrong. Oh, it wasn't self-pity. No, not at all. He wanted to know what he had done wrong, not only for the grave to be this ridiculous, but for everything. If he went far enough, maybe the grave could help him know what needed to be undone. If he found out what had gone wrong, he could undo it.

Nevermind that he would have to travel to the past for that. A bottle of alcohol was the best time travel machine in the world.

See? He didn't know yet what and when it had gone wrong, what and when he had done wong, but he was already travelling to the past! He could see Ric just there, frowning at nothing in particular. Oh wait, it was at him. Of course it was at him. He didn't remember what he had done that particular day, nor did he know what particular day he was being remembered about by the grave and the alcohol, but it was surely at him that Alaric was frowning.

He liked Ric when the man was angry. But he liked him too when he was happy. And when he was worried. No, really, he liked all the moods the hunter could get into. There was only one that he didn't like. It was when Alaric was in his I'm-a-monster mood. This one he didn't like. Usually it ended with the teacher saying stupid things about how it would be better if he died during a fight, or if he was the one to be sacrificed for once.

No doubt Damon didn't like this mood.

But, he reflected, It was better than no mood at all. Like when the hunter had gulped down the rin; Or with a dead Ric. Strangely, his vision too was reflecting things, things that shouldn't be here, in his visual field, but that were there nonetheless. Bright lights, and the light of a candle, and...

Right. That was because of the alcohol. It had been long since he had last drank this much, so much that he was starting to having trouble seeing correctly.

Damon gulped down another another glass of... something. Something that was strong. Maybe the vodka. Or... what was the third one, again? He eyed the bottle warily, wondering for a time if per accident he hadn't taken the wrong bottle, the one with the methylated spirits in it, instead of another bottle of normal, drinkable alcohol. But no. It wasn't a plastic bottle, after all.

What was he thinking before these doubts had entered his brain?

Uh... Oh! Something about him being completely responsible for the idiocy of the “Friend” on that grave. Right? And even if it wasn't it, in the end, it was it, right? He was the one at fault for this sham of a grave. He was the one who had refused to acknowledge that Alaric was dead.

It was Damon's fault.

He knew it. The grave had told him so. And the alcohol, too. Let's not forget the alcohol.

He took another sip.

And anyway, what was it with Elena and Stefan and Caroline and Bonnie and Jeremy and, and... all the others? Why had they insisted to do this stupid ceremony with the lanterns and all that? He was very certain Alaric wasn't feeling better for it.

Because Ric was dead, so he certainly didn't care about one paper lantern with his name, no, with “Friend”, written on it.

Ah, there it was again. “Friend.” The grave screamed again. Louder. Always louder.

He didn't care. He wanted to hear it scream and tell him it was all his fault, he was the one who had made this even more foolish. He wanted to hear it, for it had to be someone's fault, and the vampire had changed since he had met Elena and Alaric, and he wouldn't put the blame on someone else. Not when it was his fault.

And if it wasn't truly his fault, still, he wouldn't put the blame on someone else who had nothing to do with it. If it wasn't truly his fault, he would still believe that it was. If he didn't, then it meant that all that, that sadness in his heart, that terrible pain that was growing and gnawing at his dead soul, it was there by nobody's fault. He couldn't blame anyone. He'd have to accept and live with it.

He didn't want to accept anything.

He didn't want to live with the pain. He wanted the pain to leave.

But the pain wasn't leaving. And since the pain wasn't leaving, Damon needed someone to blame for it. And since he had changed, and wasn't as selfish as before, he would blame it upon himself.

It was easier that way.

And another glass of the nameless alcohol.

Well, perhaps it was the vodka. Or the bourbon. It wasn't necessarily the nameless alcohol. But since he couldn't tell, neither by taste nor by scent, which one it was, the three alcohols were now recognized as nameless. After all, he couldn't put a name on it, so it was nameless.

Why was he continuing drinking?

For a moment, the question passed by his mind. But it did only that: pass by. It didn't stop. It didn't anchor in his brain. It passed by, and, as soon as it had come, it was gone. As if it had never been there. The ghost of a shadow lurking for an instant in a corner of his mind.

And so he drank, and he drank so much, that he was drunk. Truly drunk. Not vampire-drunk. Drunk-drunk. Dead-drunk. Drunk with a hangover for the coming morning. A morning that would surely find him in the cemetery, drunk on the bench, or maybe, on the ground. He didn't care.

Not yet, that is. Once the morning and the hangover would be there, he would care.

But for now, the night was dark, and there was still some alcohol left. So he drank. And drank. And drank. More. And more. And more. And when the first bottle came to be empty, he reached clumsily for the plastic bag behind the bench, where waited a bottle of tequila and another bottle, of rhum that one. He truly intended to get passed-out-drunk this night.

At some point, he had said something to the grave, as if it had been Alaric himself. He had talked for a minute, told the grave how much he missed the man whose name wasn't on it. He had said things. He didn't quite remember what. He didn't want to remember, truthfully. If he remembered, then that would mean that he wasn't as drunk as he thought.

And this night, he had decided that he would be drunk like never before; be it when he was human and alive, or dead and a vampire.

He would be drunk.

He didn't remember his little speech. He was drunk. He had succeeded.

The vampire smiled in triumph, but quickly sobered up. Metaphorically, of course. He was a vampire, but with that level of drunkenness, even his fast-healing body would need some time to get sober once again.

Yet, he sobered up. In a way, that had nothing to do with being actually sober.

He had succeeded in being drunk. Now, he had to keep it that way. To drink, more and more. To drink until he passed out. He had never succeeded at that, as a vampire. Usually, he fell asleep on his own accord, because he was done drinking, and not because he was drunk.

Now was the night when he would see if it was possible, for a vampire, to pass out from drinking too much. See, he was even doing serious stuff as he drank: this, dear madam, was a study pertaining to the very important question of, can a vampire get drunk enough too pass out?

Very important research subject.

So Damon drank on, alone in the night, in a cemetery, with a grave that was shouting at him, screaming all that he had done wrong since the moment he was born. A grave, a ridiculous grave with the word “Friend” with a capitalized “F” carved on it. A grave that was someone's, and yet was not, because there was no name on it.

And the ghost whose name had been rejected, that ghost, yes, that one who had a name, but that should not be called by it, for he wasn't supposed to be a ghost, for he wasn't supposed to be dead, he was only supposed to be away, that ghost watched through the night this vampire who was trying to get drunk, so that he would be the one at fault, so that he'd be unhappy, because it's easier to be unhappy, than to try not to be.

The ghost who had been denied a name watched. At first he was worried. Then he grew to be anxious. After that he started being irritated. Eventually he was exasperated.

The ghost was past sighing, when the vampire passed out, some time around one a.m.

He growled something at the unconscious vampire, even if the vampire couldn't hear him, first, because he was unconscious, second, because he couldn't see or hear ghosts. Then he stood up, and went to search for someone who could see him, and who would retrieve the passed-out vampire from the cemetery. Jeremy would grumble, but he would do it.

The ghost had no name, and so shouldn't be named. After all, one that is away can still come back one day, can't he? The name of the ghost was booked for that one, who would come back one day.

 


	4. Join you on the Other Side

_"Jeremy.”_

The teenager turned around in his bed, thinking something along the lines of “just five more minutes, Ric...”. The day had been hellish, with the attacks on Tyler and all that. Apparently the culprit was this guy with the tattoo he had seen earlier at the Mystic Grill...

Jeremy's eyes shot open.

This had been Alaric's voice... but the teacher was dead. And it hadn't been a dream, unless his dream about Bonnie had turned out very strangely at some point to include his dead legal guardian.

So...

The teenager got rid of the blanket that was covering his head, and looked around his bedroom, in search of the ghostly form of Alaric. Sure thing, he found the teacher standing next to the door.

It wasn't the first time he saw the ghost, to say the truth. There had been that time just after the hunter's death, when Alaric, and not the hunter, mind yu, but Ric, had come into the house, and at first, the teenager had thought it was still his other, murderous personality. Then, not too long after that, Jeremy had seen the ghost watching over Damon, and, mostly, sighing in exasperation. They had talked once or twice, and each time Ric had tried to make it easier for him to accept all the deaths that a happened lately. Not an easy task, for sure.

“Ric, you're here! But... Why this late, or early, in fact, in the night?”

As he had said this, Jeremy had looked at his alarm clock. He was sure he wouldn't get to sleep again after that, but at least, he had had a fair amount of rest before the ghost had come to wake him up.

Just looking at Ric's ghost told the teenager the teacher was angry about something. “Something” was most likely raven-haired and blue-eyed. It could have been about the guy who had attacked the ceremony earlier this day, too, but Alaric looked exaperated, not worried. So, most likely Damon. As always.

Jeremy sighed. Of course, he didn't really hate the vampire anymore. That didn't mean they would become buddies anytime soon. True, he even kind of liked him. Damon wasn't a bad guy per se, though he often was a bad guy in acts. He meant well, and did the worst thing possible. Alright, even if Jeremy actually more or less appreciated the vampire, he just wasn't going to trust him. The guy had issues.

Alaric's smile was bent in a very curious shape, and obviously forced. Since he had died, and only Jeremy could see him, the ghost was doing less and less effort to control himself. There were some leftovers from him being a Saltzman, of course. But he was way more open in his body language than before.

“ _I'm sorry to wake you up, Jeremy, but Damon's dead drunk in the graveyard. Usually I'd say to leave him there, but it seems there's a maniac supernatural hunter in town, and I'd rather not have the idiot staked in his hangover.”_

See, what had he just thought? Jeremy was right, obviously; Damon Salvatore had issues. No one in their right mind would get drunk in the open when someone hell bent on making them disappear from the surface of the Earth was roaming about.

Even if Jeremy could understand why the vampire was doing this, and Alaric Saltzman himself was the main reason for this behavior, the two couldn't help but be exasperated. It wasn't as if Damon was doing this occasionally. He was continuously acting like a fool, these days. Him having a reason to do so didn't mean it was a good idea for all that.

The teenager got up and started to dress.

“I'll go.”

Just before he left the room, he turned back to look at the ghost.

“Though if he died, he'd certainly join you on the Other Side, you know.”

Alaric's ghost sneered a bit.

“ _Yes, he would. Too bad there is no way to see each other when you're here, unless you're a witch. Which I am not.”_

Jeremy shrugged.

“I'll see you there, I suppose?”

The ghost disappeared, and the teenager went on his way. Soon enough, he reached the cemetery, only to see a sleeping vampire on the teacher's grave. Ric was standing next to the vampire, utterly refusing to even look at his wretch of a boyfriend, and several empty bottles of alcohol were scattered around the grave.

Jeremy sighed, and tried to wake Damon up.

The vampire groaned, turned around, his face on the grave, this time, and nothing else happened.

Alaric snorted.

“ _If you have a stake with you, I advise you to try the guts. It wouldn't kill him, but you can be sure he would get up.”_

“And try to decapitate me thinking I'm an enemy? Thanks, but no thanks. I'll just... carry him to the boarding house.”

“ _You can't carry him by yourself all the way.”_

“Fine! I'm calling Stefan.”

So he did, and the younger Salvatore came to the graveyard not long after, grumbling something rude about over-grieving brothers. He had been busy enough dealing with Elena's new condition as a vampire and taking care of Alaric's disappearance, lately!

Stefan looked at his brother for half a minute, wondering if it wouldn't be better to just finish him now, rather than let him suffocate in his misery for one or two more decades. The younger vampire eventually snaped out of it, shook his head and rolled his eyes. He was not going to murder Damon because he was heartbroken. It was already something incredible enough, proving his brother still had a heart, after all and he wasn't going to get angy because of that. Definitely not.

Stefan pulled Damon up and onto his back, before asking Jeremy if it wouldn't be better to carry him to Alaric's loft, as the older vampire had all but taken residency there lately.

The teenager was about to say yes, wondering why he hadn't thought of that before, but Ric stopped him.

“ _It wouldn't do. There is a mad vampire hunter, ready to endanger normal people in his hunt, in town. It's not a guess to say that he understood there was something 'bloody' suspicious going on yesterday afternoon, at the ceremony, when Damon went to help Elena, and also something 'bloody' vampiric when the idiot just ripped the door of his truck. If he gets Damon's address, that is, mine, there's no telling he won't come for him. It would be wiser for him to stay at the boarding house, with Stefan and Elena.”_

Stefan watched, puzzled, as Jeremy stared at nothing in particular. After a time, the teenager looked back at the vampire, and repeated what Alaric had just told him.

“Alright, but can you tell me why you were spacing out?”

Jeremy cleared his throat, ill-at-ease.

“Erm, I was... listening to Ric. It's his idea. He's also the one who told me about your brother being... stoned in the cemetery.”

Stefan's upper lip twitched at the mention of the teenager's ability to see ghosts. He hadn't thought that, since Alaric used to be human until just before his death, the teacher would be on the Other Side. But, the teacher hadn't been only turned into an Original before his death; he had also been born as a cursed human. As for a peaceful death...

From what he knew of the Other Side, Stefan believed all the supernatural creatures went there after their death, the interrogation mark being for cursed humans, them being up for discussion about being or not “creatures”. He also knew that, after a while, some could find peace and pass on. It was what had happened to Jeremy's previous girlfriend, Anna, and to her mother as well.

But Alaric had died just recently, and his death was anything but a peaceful one. His life, even, had been quite nightmarish, and Stefan didn't even know the details. He just knew that being a Falkenbach wasn't easy on those who tried to still behave as human beings, and not monsters. There was no way he'd have passed on so soon. So, of course, his ghost certainly was still around.

And Jeremy could see ghosts.

They had made a little research, with Bonnie's help and Anna's comments. Apparently, Jeremy could only see the ghosts of those whom he wished to see, and still, if these people didn't wish to speak to him, they could decide to evade his sight. Alaric had no reason to hide from the teenager, and the teenager was bound to think about him from time to time...

“Right... Well, then, I'll take him to the boarding house. Be careful, Jer. There's a mad hunter on the loose in town.”

So they parted ways, and while Jeremy headed home, wondering about the fact that he was seemingly the only one able to see said hunter's tattoo, Stefan carried his brother back to his room, trailed by Alaric, who frowned in exasperation at the unconscious older vampire.

Stefan laid Damon on his bed, and made to leave the room.

Just as he was about to close the door behind him, he stopped, and looked back in his brother's room.

Was Ric there, somewhere?

Probably.

Unless the teacher was too angry with Damon's behavior, and so was now ignoring him. Totally plausible. It wouldn't be the first time.

Feeling a bit stupid, Stefan cleared his throat, and spoke loudly to the ghost-who-was-possibly-there-but-he-had-no-proof-of-it.

“Alaric, if you're there...”

Make yourself known. Yeah, right. He was definitely feeling like an idiot.

Sitting on the edge of Damon's bed, Ric arched an eyebrow, guessing from the silence what the vampire was thinking right now. If he had been in Stefan's shoes, though, he would surely have felt a bit silly too. Even considering he was a cursed man, who knew vampires, and had been one for a few hours, and had seen a fair amount of dead people come back from the dead, or at least manifest themselves.

It was the same thing as watching a supernatural film, preferably a B horror movie about vampires, when you knew, and had seen, the actual thing. Great, now he couldn't help but imagine Damon clothed as Dracula... worse, Nosferatu. Hilarious, truly. Dracula, at least, had some style, depending on the adaptation.

“Don't worry too much about Damon. If I have to, I'll lock him in the basement for a few days, away from any kind of drinks that are not blood or water. But anyway, we'll get that hunter, I promise. I won't let him touch anyone else in this town, and I'm sure once the idiot wakes up, he'll think the same.”

After that, Stefan left, hoping he hadn't just made a fool of himself by speaking to a ghost that wasn't even there to begin with.

The ghost-that-was-possibly-not-there laughed a bit, and lied down next to Damon.

Alaric didn't close his eyes in all of the following hours, watching the vampire. He was dead, after all. He didn't need to sleep. In fact, he just couldn't sleep. Ric found himself to be a bit jealous of Damon, who was sleeping soundly. It wasn't so bad to be undead, after all. It was in fact way better than being dead, for those who ended up on the Other Side. At least, Damon could sleep to forget about his worries. Or drink. That, he did a lot. A lot more than needed, in fact. To be frank, the teacher would have liked it better if the vampire drank less, and slept more. At least, when he was asleep, Damon was less likely to do something stupid.

Even if Alaric wouldn't put it past him, to manage to do something stupid while asleep. Nothing was to be overlooked, with Damon. Next thing they knew, he'd be sleep-walking.

Ric sighed.

Being dead, unable to interact with the world, and able to speak only with Jeremy, was difficult. Not only he was worrying over what happened to the living, but he also got bored pretty easily. He could pretend using objects, especially glasses of bourbon, by the way, but they were mere illusions he used to pass the time. And when he got bored, his brain had taken the habit to imagine strange things. Such as a damonish version of Nosferatu. Unless it was a nosferatish version of Damon?

He couldn't rely on Jeremy to entertain him. The teenager had other things to do. Though, now that he thought about it, maybe he should use this opportunity to help, or actually force, Jeremy to do his homework...

 


	5. Here, watching and listening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after 4x03, though with the whole Damon-is-a-mess-and-I-certainly-don't-plan-to-use-the-sire-bond-bullshit, many things haven't happened exactly as in the show. Just know that Damon was there to trap Connor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaaah... It's hard to write about this... So hard... Hopefully the part when it start to move will come soon enough.
> 
> By the way, I've started a twitter account where I plan to post various things about my fanfics: update notice, "writing in process" news, this kind of things... I don't know if it'll be useful, but well, I try.  
> https://twitter.com/EKernor

_"So, you led the hunter right to Klaus and Damon?”_

Jeremy shrugged, and punched the air, under Alaric's watchful eye.

“That's about it, yeah. I didn't especially want him to murder half of the people I care about, meaning, my sister, her boyfriend, Caroline, and even Damon. Oh, and Tyler, even if he's a douchebag. And since this Connor didn't seem to be one to make a deal, more of the kind to kill all the vampires until there's none left whatsoever, or until he himself is dead...”

“ _You thought it'd be better to finish it with the second option.”_

There was no judgment in the ghost's voice. He was only statting a fact, even if he felt a bit sad that the teenager had to chose about something such as to kill or let a person live. It wasn't something a teenager should have to do.

“I don't have anything against vampire hunters. They can be useful. You were dead useful. But you're just dead, now, so... And this one was a radical. Still, it appear I have the potential to be a hunter, somehow, and this town definitely needs someone who will not just overlook what happens. Elena is too busy trying not to jump at anyone throat, Stefan tries too hard to keep the peace, Caroline isn't exactly a hero, and Damon is just completely out of it.”

Yeeesss, Damon could hardly be called a hero. And that wasn't the only reason the vampire was out of it, lately. There was no point trusting him to keep Mystic Falls protected.

“ _Alright, Jeremy. I'll teach you how to fight efficiently.”_

Alaric's ghost walked to the teenager, and put his hand on Jeremy's arm.

“ _But, as you already know, we can touch but we can't touch. You see we are in contact, and yet you don't feel anything, correct?”_

Jeremy nodded. He had had time, with Anna, to experiment. There was absolutely no way for a living person to touch a ghost. It didn't mean they could pass through one another either. If it happened, the ghost was simply pushed out of the space where the living person wanted to go, without them feeling anything, which was weird. If the ghost had a strong will, and was particularly angry, they sometimes succeeded in pushing back, and then it was the living person who was pushed out. Those who could do that were usually dead witches.

As for Alaric, he had been pushed out a few times in the first days of his ghostly existence. It had been weird. At some point, he had been literally trapped in a moving crowd in a corridor in the high school, and he had been pushed back... well, back and forth, for three whole minutes. Being a ghost unable to interact with the world was really strange, sometimes. It had felt as if he had no strenght at all, not even enough to keep standing, as he had been pushed right and left, into a wall, against a backpack, away from a teen and back into the crowd. There had even been a time when he had embarassingly ended up with his face in the cleavage of fellow / ex-colleague / math teacher Andrea Lopez. If a ghost had ever blushed in the history of the Other Side, it was him.

“ _So, I can't fight with you to train you. All I can do, is giving you tips, and showing you techniques, without actually making you practice them against me, or react to a response to your attacks. At some point, you'll have to ask for someone to help you.”_

“I know that!”

“ _Good.”_

And with that said, Alaric began to instruct Jeremy about his stance, the way he should think about the fights and his opponents, how to keep focused on what was going on. When the teenager asked if this would all be really useful in a fight with a werewolf, or worse, a vampire, the teacher retorted that they had to start with the basics. And anyway, if they got to the point when Jeremy could fight supernatural beings long enough with just speed and strenght, then it would come in handy to know how to break a neck just with his arms. After all, it was so much easier to stake an unconscious vampire than a conscious one...

The sun was about to set when they stopped the training.

Jeremy was sweaty and exhausted, and he let himself fall to the ground with a relieved sigh.

“I can't believe you people actually do that for fun.”

The ghost snorted lightly.

“ _That's called sports, Jeremy, and if you did a bit more of it on a daily basis, you wouldn't be so exhausted after just that.”_

The teenager mock-glared at the teacher. He opened his mouth to say some smartass reply, but shut it right back.

Damon was making his way into the woods, and towards them. Maybe Elena had sent the vampire in a search-my-little-brother-please-I'm-so-worried hunt, so that he'd leave the boarding house a bit. Leaving by the same token the bottles of bourbon.

Now, if there was one thing Alaric had demanded of Jeremy in exchange for his training him, it was this: to never tell Damon that the ghost was there. He didn't want the vampire to hold onto false hope, and given the way things were going for now, it really looked like it was what would happen if the teen told Damon about his presence.

The vampire trailed to them, squinted at the teenager who was lying on the ground, and sat down upon a rock.

“Your sister seemed to think you were gone to get some drugs again. I'll tell her you were only taking a dirt bath. She'll be delighted, no doubt.”

A handful of dirt flew in the general direction of Damon, but it fell back way before it reached the vampire.

“I was exercising, if you must know. I run into too many supernaturals creatures by the week for my mental tranquility, and too many of them usually try to murder me at one point or another. I'd rather not make a target that is too easy to take down.”

The vampire shrugged, and silence fell back onto the group. Ric was keeping carefully quiet, just in case he said somehing and Jeremy answered without thinking that he shouldn't actually be speaking with no one. At some point, Damon looked back at the teen, who didn't seem to be willing to get up and leave the woods just yet.

“Training, you said?”

“At my level, it's more like exercising, really, but yeah, it's my goal. Why?”

The vampire remained thoughtful for a few seconds, that Alaric used to observe him.

Damon looked... not a mess, because the red eyes, and by that he meant the red eyes that were caused by abuse of alcohol, and the bad breath, had left since quite a long time, with him being a vampire and all that. But he looked bad, in a way, his shoulder slumped and his gaze empty.

Ric sighed. His lover really needed to get himself together. No matter what, the teacher wasn't coming back. He was dead, and it was about time for the vampire to accept it.

But he couldn't speak up without gaining the attention of Jeremy, and so the suspicion of Damon, and he coudn't speak through the teenager, because it would be like giving himself away. No, actually, it would be giving oneself away, no discussion.

And Alaric didn't want to give himself away.

So he couldn't say anything. So he watched. So he listened.

Then, Damon surprised both the teenager and the teacher.

“I could help you train, if you feel like it.”

Jeremy's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. He spluttered a bit, and had to sit up so that he could cough properly, and not suffocate himself.

“Why would you do that?”

The vampire arched an eyebrow at him.

“Do you really need to ask?”

Finally, they agreed to come here one evening out of two, so that the teenager would not overexert himself between school, training, and the various other kinds of shit that could happen, and usually did happen, in Mystic Falls. And on top of that, he had to spend the next day with Klaus and Connor of all people, so that he could draw the tattoo on the man's arm since he was seemingly the only one able to see it... Not that Damon knew the hunter still lived.

When they finally left the woods, Jeremy heading for the Gilbert house and Damon for the boarding house, no, sorry, for the wine cellar of the boarding house, Ric tagged along Jeremy for a while.

They needed to talk, and least of all about the guilt the teenager was currently experiencing when he remembered that he had promised Alaric not to say anything about his existence to the vampire.

Continued existence.

Continued ghostly invisible intangible existence.

Whatever.

When they arrived at the Gilbert House, Jeremy sighed, and put down his coat. He started to cook himself dinner, with the TV on. Soon enough, though, he put it out.

“ _Don't you feel lonely, sometimes?”_

The teenager didn't answer right away, chopping vegetables into small bits.

As his legal guardian was dead, and his new legal guardian was not trusting herself not to try to drain him of his blood right now, the teenager lived alone in the house. At first, it had been great, no one to order him around or tell him to go to bed after 2 a.m., but it wasn't the same as when parents went away for a week and then came back. He was actually starting to feel a bit lonely, from time to time. He was in fact happy to see that Alaric might stick around a bit more often from now on.

For a time, he had lived off pizzas, but a stern look from the ghost had ended it easily two days prior. Sure, the teacher was already busy enough watching over Damon, but strangely, it didn't seem to be enough. He had to look over Jeremy, too...

Meaning, a twenty minutes lecture about why it was not healthy to eat only pizza. Even for breakfast. Not that Jeremy didn't agree with that last part, but he had just been too lazy to search for something else, so he usually finished the pizza from the previous evening in the morning.

So here he was now, making a salad for dinner. He was putting extra effort because of the teacher's presence, of course.

“I do. I just hope it won't take years for Elena to come to terms with the fact that she's a vampire, now. I'm still a minor, after all. I need someone to look after me.”

Ric arched an eyebrow, and his eyes looked down at the dish that the teenager had almost finished to prepare.

“ _More like you'd rather not have to make dinner yourself, isn't it?”_

Jeremy smirked a bit, and waved his knife in the air, as if to fend off an attacker. The knife eventually came into contact with the ghost, who had to take a step back because of it.

“ _I hope you don't do that with living beings around.”_

“Depends. Does Damon count as a living being?”

The teacher squinted his eyes.

“ _I'll let you the benefit of doubt. Now, as we're talking about Damon...”_

Jeremy put down his knife, and went to the fridge, searching for what was left of the steak from yesterday. He proceeded to heat it again.

“ _... You know you can't feel guilty about not telling him, don't you?”_

The teenager took his salad and went to the table, planning on eating it meanwhile.

“Of course I know that. Because I know doesn't mean I agree.”

The ghost stared at the youth for a few minutes.

“ _You're feeling even more guilty because he proposed to help you, right?”_

“Possible.”

Alaric sighed. It wasn't that he wanted Jeremy to keep quiet. Hell, he wanted Damon to know he was here, if only to stop the vampire from drinking so much. But he also knew that knowing wasn't likely to stop his boyfriend, and that it was even more likely to make him more desperate. Maybe for a time, the vampire would get better, but soon enough...

Soon enough, the fact that Ric was here, watching and listening, but that he wouldn't be able to see and hear him on his part, this fact would eat him up. And as Damon would know that Ric was here, it was more than likely that the vampire would never be able to let go. Meaning, that Alaric wouldn't be able to either. And for a vampire and a ghost, “never” was a long time of negation.

Jeremy went to take his steak.

“You don't have to explain, Ric. I know how grieving works. It's just that I never managed to follow the advices, myself, not without using drugs and alcohol, which are definitely not part of the advices for grieving. I won't tell Damon... unless you tell me to, that is.”

 


	6. Budding feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 4x04 ( for the general timeline, since things are really changing, now )  
> Interesting stuff will happen soon, I swear.  
> Not that this isn't interesting.  
> It is?

Damon helped Elena to stack some boxes in the car trunk, wondering aloud what exactly the doppelganger and his brother had planned to do with those, when they were supposed to be going to Whitmore College for research.

Research, he emphasized.

“Shut it, Damon. Go back to moping somewhere else, somewhere where you won't be suggesting things about what my boyfriend and I do in our spare time!”

The older vampire frowned in mock hurt.

“And here I was helping you out before you two left! But I see you'd rather see me miserable, Elena. That's so mean of you. If you aren't careful, you'll end up like Katherine. Wait, see! You already got the fangs.”

The younger vampire was about to retort something scathing, but Stefan got to it first and smacked his brother on the head.

“Don't listen to him, he has drunk almost all our alcohol in the last week.”

Stefan and Damon glared at each other for a good ten seconds.

Then, turning to his girlfriend, the younger brother smiled softly. He hadn't wanted for her to become a vampire, to experience the thirst and the overwhelming emotions, but here they were. Since things weren't going to change just like that, Stefan'd better accept it. At least, he wouldn't be alone once Elena would die of old age, since she wasn't going to die of old age at all.

The two of them were going to Whitmore College to investigate about the Five. Apparently Connor had been one special kind of hunter, and really, Damon couldn't care less. The only special kind of hunter he was interested in was dead, a true psycho at times, and haunting him, even if he didn't know about that last part. The older vampire had passed his turn to investigate this special breed of hunters. He had to take care of and teach how to fight properly to mini-special-hunter Jeremy, he had argued, even though he in fact simply couldn't bother.

Besides, it gave Stefan and Elena some time away from all the others. They needed it, with the latest changes in their lives, including blood-sucking and a lot of deaths.

So, Damon would stay at Mystic Falls, keep an eye on little Van Helsing, just in case the teenager suddenly felt the urge to murder all the vampires he would come across, a situation that would be most disagreable considering how some of Jeremy's friends were vampires. Stefan and Elena would go at Whitmore, try to learn one or two things from this Atticus Shane professor about the Five, since it was their best lead, if the not the only one. Klaus was the other lead, but it just so happened that Klaus was difficult to deal with. So Shane and his lessons really was their best lead.

The two needed some time alone, and Damon had understood that. Not that it mattered, for he wouldn't have wanted to go anyway.

Stefan gave his brother a stern look, that Damon only shrugged away. Both knew the carefree attitude was only a facade, but it was already something, for the older Salvatore to even bother faking hapiness.

It was something, even if it wasn't much.

“We'll be leaving in ten minutes. I just have to call Liz and tell her not to count on Damon if anything happens while we're away. She'd better ask Caroline, or even Tyler, to deal with it.”

Exasperated, Damon almost shoved his brother in the car.

“Alright, we get it, I'm not reliable. No need to make such a fuss about it.”

It was Elena who stopped their shenanigans, her hand grabbing Damon's. The youngest vampire of the group tried to say something, but her eyes met his, and something flickered in their shared gaze. It lasted more than necessary, and Stefan could very well see the tenderness that took over his brother's features for a time, before it was replaced by something else. Something that looked much like deep hurt.

The younger brother felt his heart clench as he remembered how they had first fought over the girl, before Damon had realized there was love to be found elsewhere than in a doppelganger of Katherine Pierce.

That is, once his brother had stopped pining after Katherine like crazy.

Now, Alaric was gone, and Stefan couldn't help but wonder...

After a time, Damon's face twisted in an odd way, and he jerked away.

“Right, lovebirds. Don't stay up too late, don't kill anyone, or if you do, hide the body, and don't get high on blood. I know how colleges are.”

Elena retorted dryly.

“I'm sure you do.”

Damon forced a laugh, but it was pretty obvious it was just that: forced. Stefan couldn't tell why it was so, and it unnerved him. He didn't think his brother would get over Ric so quickly, but that was just the danger; when Damon grieved, he went completely overboard, be it with drinking, violence, or women. This time he had indulged only to the first vice, but that only made Stefan more worried.

Who knew if Damon wouldn't explode once they would all be convinced he had reined it in?

For now, Damon was obsessing over Alaric's death. What if he got enough of it, and that to try and appease the hurt, he went and redirected his obsession onto something else? Onto someone else?

There had been a time when Damon had gone after Elena.

Stefan tried to get his worries to shut up, but it wasn't working very well.

The older vampire tried to walk away, after a quick “bye”, but his brother grabbed his sleeve.

“Wait a minute, Damon. Would you talk to me for a minute before we leave?”

Damon shot a glance to Elena, who was already seated in the car, before answering.

“Your gorgeous girlfriend is waiting for you, Stefan. If it was for me that she was waiting, I wouldn't be one to stall too much.”

Of course, this wasn't helping Stefan's worries at all. In fact, it even turned them into something more: jealousy was starting to make itself known to the younger Salvatore.

Stefan dragged his older brother behind him, excusing himself to Elena for the wait. He hoped he was wrong, both for Damon and for himself, but he had to say it. He had to ask.

And he had to eventually be told that he was getting it all wrong.

He didn't want to consider the possibility that it could not be the eventual outcome.

He closed the door of the Gilbert house behind them, and finally let go of his brother.

Damon made a step away from Stefan, frowning at him in incomprehension.

“What was that?!?”

Stefan glared at his brother, his hand on the handle of the door to keep him from just walking out and evade the subject.

“Leave Elena alone, Damon! She has enough problems without you harassing her.”

Damon's eyes widened, before his facial expression darkened. He eventually let out dry laugh.

It wasn't false that he had felt something come back when he had crossed gazes with Elena. He wasn't going to deny it. After all, he had truly felt attracted to her, physically and mentally, at some point. His love for Alaric had killed off the budding feeling before it had grown into more, but it hadn't made him insensible.

He was so messed up right now, he knew exactly what Stefan was thinking about.

And the worst was that he couldn't tell his little brother that he had gotten it wrong, for it would be a lie, and lies weren't what was needed right now.

“I'm harassing her, really? You have nothing to fear, brother: all I see when I look at her, even if I'm glad she is alive, is that Alaric is dead because of her, because of Rebekah, because of Esther, because of Klaus, because of Esther again, because of the Petrova doppelgangers.”

It was true, after all. Without the Petrova line, Esther wouldn't have been able to create the Originals, hence, no Klaus Mikaelson murdering people left and right, hence, no Esther trying to undo her creations and using Elena to create an even worse Original that of course had to be Ric, hence, no Rebekah killing Elena, thus, no history teacher dying because his life had been linked to the doppelganger's.

Obviously, Damon was aware that the girl had never asked to be who and what she was. He knew it wasn't her fault. He didn't hold what had happened against her.

Still, it didn't change the fact that Ric was dead.

And each time he saw the face of the doppelganger, he couldn't not remember that it had been her blood that had made the hunter an Original, that it had been her death that had killed him.

“True, I have feelings for her that are coming back, or more accurately, that are bubbling out without my consent. But you don't have to worry, Stefan. Truly. Each time it tries to come out, it is crushed to death by the reminder of what I don't have anymore because of what Esther did with her blood.”

Damon gave a small smile to his brother, who looked relieved, in a way, even if he was definitely feeling bad about what had just transpired.

“Even if I wanted to get her, brother, it would only hurt me more than it would feel good. I don't intend to. I'm already hurting enough like that.”

Stefan let out a deep sigh, and his eyes flickered to his brother's, before looking elsewhere once again. He couldn't really face Damon just now.

“I'm sorry, Damon. Really sorry. I shouldn't have... Not when you're grieving...”

“Don't worry about it. I've done more than my share of being awful to you, all those years, and all that for a bitch who didn't even care about me. You have the right to be angry with me from time to time.”

Damon trailed off a bit, at the end of that sentence, his eyes wandering in the air, as if searching for something that wasn't here, a memory, a dream, maybe. A story in which he hadn't made a bastard of himself for more than a century.

But eventually, the older vampire locked eyes with his little brother, and this time, Stefan didn't avert his gaze.

“You have that right, not only because of all that I've put you through, but also because I haven't shown myself as someone you can trust. I don't even trust myself, sometimes, and you are right to be wary of me. All this years of evil deeds can't just be forgotten with something like one year, more or less, of redemption. I understand that. I don't blame you for thinking that way.”

After what Damon frowned slightly.

“Though I expect you to start trusting me again before the next century, or I might lose patience.”

Stefan snorted, opening the door again.

“I'll consider it if you stop flirting with my girlfriend.”

“Damn, then you'll never trust me, I'm afraid. I flirt with all that breathe... and what doesn't, too.”

The younger vampire rolled his eyes, and walked away.

Soon, Damon was watching the car leave, with the vampiric couple aboard. He hoped it would go well for them, considering Elena still had issues with controlling her thirst.

This trip to Whitmore College was in fact a test, as much as it was a quest for more information: they needed to know if Elena could control herself when amongst many people, and none of whom that she knew. Caroline had tutored the new vampire, after the incident at the memorial, and Stefan knew his stuff with not being good at control, always going from diet to slaughter, from slaughter to diet. Apparently it was getting better, after the latest Ripper episode.

Slowly, Damon made his way back to the boarding house, but with no special goal to achieve by doing that. Lately, he was living this way, like the undead vampire he was. With no goal or dream to achieve.

He let himself fall onto the couch, an arm above his eyes, keeping the light away.

“What am I doing, anyway? Falling back for Elena? Certainly not. Nothing could be worse.”

He wasn't talking to anyone, but who cared? Certainly not him.

“What am I doing?”

In the armchair on the other side of the coffee table, a ghost was sitting, slightly irritated.

“ _That's what I'd want to know, Damon.”_

Silence was all that remained in the library of the boarding house, and that for several dozens of minutes. The ghost kept silent, alone, as always, on the Other Side. The vampire could have fallen asleep, even if nothing was less sure. He wasn't moving one inch, in any case.

Eventually the silence was broken by the ringing of Damon's cellphone.

The vampire took it out. He frowned when he saw the number. Maybe he'd better pick up, after all.

“Ariane. I hope you're well.”

“ _Well on my way to Mystic Falls, if anything.”_

 


	7. Her eyes were steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 4x05, the events changing quite a lot here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so... I'm experimenting here, and we'll see what comes out of it.
> 
> "COMMENT, PLEASE" in a whining voice
> 
> Apart from that, this chapter is one where I change many things about the story. First of all, I speak of the Augustine one season early. Doesn't mean we won't see them in part 4 ( that's still doesn't have a name, obviously ). And yes, Enzo is dead-dead. He didn't fit in the story, and considering Ariane... Well, you'll see.  
> And this is yet a chapter where I introduce something that doesn't exist in the show. Just consider it's because I've erased the bullshit that was the sire-bond ( love sire-bond, I mean. Tyler's exists ), if you want an excuse.
> 
> Also, if you want to see what Ariane looks like, go here: http://alviola.deviantart.com/art/Coups-de-crayons-Eternity-for-your-pleasure-589820543

Alaric squinted at Damon. Damon, who was, unsurprisingly, drinking. Getting stoned. Smashed. Intoxicated. Or at least, who was trying to become all the above. Ric snorted. Of course, the vampire would deal with things this way.

After having answered the phone, said two words to the caller, paled, and finally hung up, Damon had rushed to the Mystic Grill, and asked for a drink. And then another one. And yet another one.

And now, one day later, he was back in the Grill, and doing the exact same thing.

No one had questioned it, not even Jeremy, who was working as the bartender, because that's what Damon did, lately. Drink, to the blink of oblivion. It was a wonder there was still a drop alcohol in town. Surely the Grill couldn't order enough to keep up with the speed the vmpire was gulping bourbon, and any other potent liquid, down.

Damon was staring at his glass of bourbon, currently, and not drinking it. Between two gulps, the ghost had noticed his boyfriend would stop for a minute, mumble something incomprehensible about “bloody murder / reaper / Ariane / Augustine”. This was not his usual _modus operandi_ to get smashed, and so Alaric just knew there was something wrong with that phone call.

Well. Wronger than usual. Meaning, very very very wrong.

Now, considering they had a hunter on the loose, a few hybrids, and some Originals in town, Alaric could hardly guess how it could get worse. Not that it couldn't. Just, he didn't see how it could.

It was all the more worrying that Klaus was, in fact, not in town. Rebekah was, but not Klaus. That made only one Original around, and while they usually were a pain in the ass, they were quite useful to get rid of other insanely strong monsters, to learn about things forgotten for centuries, and other things like that. Meaning, they usually were part of the problem, but when they weren't, they were a good way to get rid of the problem. Especially since they didn't like when someone encroached on their territory. And since Damon had not muttered anything about “bloody Originals” so far, it seemed they weren't part of the problem.

But Klaus was not here for now, and Rebekah was unaccounted for, so they'd have to deal with whatever bad news this Ariane was coming with, alone.

So Ric worried, unable, once again, to do anything, or even to question Damon about whatever was making him try and get drunk.

After a fourth glass of bourbon, that had also been preceded, not only by three other glasses of bourbon, but two of tequila, a voice shook Damon out of his alcohol-induced torpor.

The vampire froze on his bar stool, unwilling to look at the woman who had just sat down next to him. After all, maybe it was only someone who sounded like her... and who had decided to come to the Mystic Grill just after they had agreed to meet there. Ariane had said she'd arrive around this hour, this day... She hadn't said she would be there just now. It could very well be someone else, who sounded like her.

Yeah, right. It wasn't as if there were a lot of people with a roman accent roaming around these days. And it wasn't as if the woman had just called him by his name, before she had asked Jeremy for a drink.

Eventually, Damon gathered some courage, and turned to look at Ariane.

For it was her. No doubt about it. It wasn't as if they had shared a cell for a few years or anything.

“Ariane, what a joy to see you again! I hope you don't resent me too much for what happened the last time we met?”

Alaric's ghost turned in his seat to take a good look at the woman.

She appeared to be in her twenties, slender and well proportionned. She was wearing dark greenish, greyish draped pants, with leather black boots on top of them, and a shoulderless top of the same colour. Her hands weren't visible, in black long gloves. Strange, but not so much that people would start staring openly.

The woman's face was squarish, but not too much. Her mouth was thin, her nose straight, her eyebrows arched as if in anger. Her long black hair curled up a bit at the ends, and went down to the small of her back, with two locks falling on her chest, and bangs before her right eye. She looked somehow italian, the ghost mused, before he finally looked at her eyes.

Just under the corners, she had what looked like two triangular, dark turquoise tattoos. But it wasn't what disturbed him the most.

What was the most disturbing with the woman's large black eyes, was that Ric had the feeling they could see he was here. He backed away, stunned, and when he looked at her again, she wasn't paying him any attention. The ghost sighed, reasoning that he must be paranoid. There was no way she could see him. Even Jeremy, who could see ghosts, could only see those who had mattered to him. Alaric was no one to this Ariane, so there was no way she could see him.

He was becoming paranoid.

Damon cringed when the woman gave him a scathing look.

“If I resent you for using me as a bait for those scientists? No, certainly not!”

“Come on, I knew you wouldn't die of it.”

“Me, no. But Enzo died because of your decision. Now, what was it about an immortal who wanted your hide, that you went so far as to call for my help?”

The vampire winced, when he remembered about two things: first, that he had in fact called for help when Alaric had been disturbingly bent on exterminating all vampires from the face of the Earth; second, how he had escaped from the secret society Augustine, leaving Ariane behind, and Enzo, another vampire, to die. They both knew he wouldn't have made it if he had helped them... but maybe he shouldn't have used Ariane as a bait.

Damon cleared his throat, awkward.

“Oh, that... Well, finally, we got it all sorted out, in the end... Apparently, he was indestructible, but not immortal. His life had been bound to a human's one, and Rebekah killed her... So we got... rid... of him.”

The vampire's voice went down, and down, and Ariane didn't miss the fact. The woman could only guess, but it was pretty obvious that Damon had lost someone dear to him, that day. Several someones, perhaps.

That would explain why this one was here, with them.

“Oh, Rebekah is...”

“Don't bother. I'm older than the Originals, remember? I've done my best not to run into them, for a fight between us wouldn't have come to an end quickly, but I've also kept an eye on them.”

Damon knew that Ariane was older than Klaus and his siblings. How much older, he wasn't sure, but several centuries, at least. She wasn't a vampire, either, and she would be extremely difficult to kill, if what he had seen when they had been experimented upon by the Augustine was any kind of hint. A fight against any Original would have been an unending bloodshed... Though, technically speaking, it would have only been the Original bleeding, because Ariane couldn't bleed.

“So, in the end, I've come for nothing.”

The woman sighed, and rose from her seat, apparently heading for the ladies room.

Damon hesitated an instant, but eventually followed her. She could be useful, after all, in getting rid of Connor. The hunter of the Five certainly didn't think he would have to fight against somehing like her, and it was a given he would have no idea how to even do that. People like Ariane were rare. From what she had told the vampire, they were only twelve. And only one of them had ever died.

So Damon followed Ariane, intent on talking to her, maybe to get her forgiveness. He followed her, to the ladies room. This had Ric's ghost arching an eyebrow at his boyfriend, but of course, said boyfriend couldn't see him doing that.

While Damon and Ariane were talking, April and Matt entered the Mystic Grill, and went to talk with Jeremy. Alaric watched the teenagers speak of various things, including Rebekah Mikaelson.

But things got ugly pretty fast, when one hunter named Connor entered the Grill, followed Jeremy, and threatened him with a knife, effectively taking the three teenagers hostages under the very eyes of an angered ghost that could, obviously, do nothing to help.

It was a good thing for the hunter that Alaric wasn't able to do anything because he was a ghost. If Ric hadn't been a ghost, member of the Five or not, Connor would have had to deal with an ireful Falkenbach. And the facts were that, even if Connor had never fought against one of these cursed humans, Falkenbachs and hunters of the Five had already fought on three occasions through History. Only one fight had been won by a member of the Five; they were programmed to be perfect vampire hunters. The Falkenbachs were programmed to be perfect killers, period.

Still, Falkenbach or not, Alaric was a ghost, and he just couldn't do anything. He couldn't even warn anyone, considering Jeremy was one of the hostages.

The mad hunter said things, that Alaric barely registered, too busy with self-anger. The ghost was also wondering what the two idiots were doing in the washroom, that they still hadn't gotten out, and helped the kids. With Damon's vampire hearing, they should know, by now, that Connor the freaking psycho had come and was keeping his knife at Jeremy's throat...

But maybe that was why they weren't getting out.

Damon was a vampire, and Connor was doing this to get at all the vampires in Mystic Falls. If he came out and did only one thing wrong, Connor wouldn't shy away from taking it out on Jeremy.

But eventually, they'd have to act.

In fact, it was Connor himself who pulled the trigger for that one. The hunter had just sent a text saying he held the children's fate in his hands to Tyler, Stefan... and Damon.

The ringing of Damon's phone could be heard from the ladies room. Jeremy and Matt shared a surprised look, while April's eyes went wide open, and Alaric facepalmed.

Connor's face twisted into one of vicious satisfaction.

“So, there is one here already... Wonder why he hasn't come to your help yet, Jeremy?”

The teen rolled his eyes, but refrained from commenting. He still had a knife resting against his neck, after all. And it just happened that he liked his neck to be just where it was. Between his head and his torso.

Sure, he had his Gilbert ring, but he wasn't completely certain it would work if he was killed by a human being, even if with supernatural abilities like a hunter of the Five. Cursed humans were kind of a grey area, when it came to that. Jeremy personally didn't want to test what the rules were for them.

Connor spoke louder, this time.

“Come out, vampire! Or one of the children will lose their life... and after that, I'll come for you!!!”

Alaric glared daggers at the hunter. He had never threatened an innocent human being, and he was a cursed man! What was Connor's excuse?

They all heard the door to the ladies room open, but when they looked there, it wasn't Damon that stood in the door-frame. Though the vampire was just behind.

No, it was Ariane, who looked at the hunter with contempt.

“Get away from the vampire, woman! I won't hurt you, if you get out of the way.”

Matt snorted at that, clearly doubting the man's words.

Ariane walked to the member of the Five, keeping herself between Damon and Connor. When she joined him next to the bar counter, she stopped less than one metter away from him.

“Let the teenager go, and use me as a shield instead.”

Her voice was cool, as if she was used to this kind of situation, but her eyes were steel. The hunter felt he'd better not argue with her offer. Still, he did. This woman knew nothing of the danger of vampires, and if she did, she clearly didn't understand what they really were. What if he had to kill a few innocents? In the end, he would save more than he would condemn.

“Certainly not. But since you won't move... I warned you!”

The hunter violently released Jeremy, his knife grazing lightly the teenager's neck as he did so. He then went for Ariane's throat, while he grabbed for another weapon at his hip in the same time with his other hand. He intended to get rid of her, since she wouldn't let him do his duty, and to immediately aim for the vampire who was cowardly hiding behind her.

But his knife, when it touched the woman's skin, stopped dead, its speed disappearing. Connor saw the skin being cut open, but it never got further than that. There wasn't even any blood.

He saw one more thing, heard one more thing, before he felt no more; it was a dark blade going for his own neck, and it was the voice of Ariane as death claimed him.

“Let's do this again: hello there, I'm very pleased to meet you, and before you ask, I'm older than anyone you've ever met, and I'm a grim reaper.”

 


	8. Death seemed not to know of us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wanted to know more about Ariane? Here it is!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so, my experiment was successful: with a simple "'COMMENT, PLEASE' in a whining voice" --> twice as many comments/reviews between here and ff.net, considering I usually have 2 or three comments on news chapters. This time, there were 5. Deduce what you must, but I won't forget.  
> Maybe I should kill off a character as a revenge. Hum...

Ariane took her scythe out of the hunter's body, and massaged her temples. With some luck, no one had called the police yet, and so she wouldn't have to answer any question about the fact that she had an enormous black scythe with her. And that she had just killed someone with it. Really, it'd be great.

She listened for a minute, not really willing to look at those who had already witnessed the scythe. Damon wasn't really a problem, considering he had always known she wasn't a normal person, even if she had never told him what she was exactly. The children, on the other hand... And there was also that other one... Not that he'd be able to snitch to anyone, but still.

As she heard no police siren, Ariane allowed herself a sigh, and then she made her scythe disappear into a black cloud that she absorbed. Now, there was no murder weapon left, she mused warily.

It was at this precise moment that the only teenage girl in the building let out a terrified shriek.

The blond young man next to her rushed to try and calm her down, but it was Damon who finally got to the girl and compulsed her fears and her knowledge of the events out of her. The girl then fell unsconcious, and the vampire sighed in exasperation.

Damon handed the girl to Jeremy, who caught her in his arms, a bit bemused with the situation, his eyes flickering ever so discreetly to Alaric, who only shrugged. Now, there was no danger left, and anyway, the teacher couldn't do anything. The teenager'd better just play along.

“Alright, Little Gilbert. You and Wonder Boy get the spring girl back to her house, explain that she fainted, and make sure she doesn't ask disturbing things again. Meanwhile, I'll take care of the Bible salesman's body.”

The vampire looked aroung, and glared at the floor, where a little pool of blood had already started to spread.

“...And I'll take care of cleaning up too. Great. My afternoon just became perfect.”

Ric snorted, and motionned for Jeremy to do just what _“Pissy pants Damon”_ had told him to. Ariane frowned when she saw the boy react without apparent reason, and she squinted at him as the three teenagers made their way out of the Mystic Grill.

As the three and a half peop... beings were finally alone, Damon started to do his job. Even if one could argue that Connor Jordan being sadly deceased and Alaric Saltzman being nothing more than a ghost, both of them could be counted as only one half of a person, then making the count of three and a half wrong. It should be three... considering that their “presence” could even be counted.

No matter.

Ariane helped the vampire to clean up the blood, and they quickly went and disposed of the incriminating body.

It was as Damon was driving back to the boarding house that he finally got the courage to ask.

“A grim reaper, so?”

Ariane gave him the look, the one that told she really wasn't impressed by his pretending to be merely curious.

“Yes.”

“And...?”

“For Jupiter's sake, Damon, just ask.”

The vampire said nothing for a minute, intent on appearing as if he was focusing on his driving, which could have worked if he hadn't been, as usual, driving without a care in the world the minute before. Ariane wasn't fooled.

“Damon.”

“Right. Erm, so, I know you can't bleed like all of us because your blood is downright solid, even if I have no idea how you move with it being the case, I know that said blood is black, and I known you don't heal particularly fast, though still faster than a human being. I don't think you are particularly fast or strong, but you can summon some kind of death scythe. And you said you are a grim reaper.”

The said grim reaper nodded, looking slightly bored.

“So, what does it entail exactly, to be a grim reaper?”

“I was born not long after the Christ was crucified.”

The car lurched violently, but Damon managed to go past his surprise and get back onto the right side of the road. A bit nonplussed, the vampire still did what he did the best: speak out of turn, and out of civility.

“Old hag.”

The car lurched again, startling a pair of squirrels in the nearest tree. When everything was normal again, Damon's shirt was suspiciously red with blood... but it could have been tomato juice, squinting hard.

“I'll ask of you to keep your mouth shut, Damon, unless you want to have a car accident. Besides, I do believe vampires can burn to death, whereas I cannot. If the car explose, you're in it for an unpleasant moment... and then I'll see you on the Other Side, obviously.”

Damon grunted something, then realized what his friend had just said.

He just knew there was no way Ariane would get killed just like that.

At the Augustine, the scientists had known how to get rid of vampires, they had just been searching for a better way to do it, more efficiently, maybe a way that would work on its own, without them even needing to do anything. The Augustine was a secret society against vampires, after all. That was why Damon and Enzo had been there, used as test samples.

But Ariane had also been there, and the two vampires had just known she wasn't like them. Even if they hadn't seen her being brought back tot the cell, with cuts all over her body, but not a drop of blood anywhere, they would have known. It wasn't difficult to know for a vampire, really: Ariane had no heartbeat. As if her blood had frozen in her veins, in her arteries, in her very heart.

She hadn't been strong enough to escape, despite that, because she wasn't stronger or faster than a human. Yes, she was strong and fast for a human, but not so out of human limits. Now that he thought about it, Ariane was probably the same as a Falkenbach on that point.

The scientists had restrained her, and Damon could now guess it had to do with her scythe. If she could summon it, but was unable to use it, it was plainly useless.

Still, no matter what those scientists of the Augustine did to Ariane, the woman never died. They had tried everything. Her blood wouldn't flow. Even when they tried to take out some of her flesh, her whole flesh even, it did not work, because each time the knife would meet a vein, no matter the size, even capillaries, the knife would be stopped, as if it had encountered something that would not break, no matter what. Once, there had been the disgusting noise of a chainsaw, and screams.

But Ariane had come back to the cell next to Enzo's. With not one inch of her skin not ripped into shreads, but alive nonetheless. Her blood seemed to be harder than diamond.

Ariane had been there because she wasn't human. She had been there because the scientists were afraid of what she was. Because they didn't know how to kill her.

And they had never found the ghost of a way.

The point was, Ariane had said she'd see him on the Other Side. A place where she was unlikely to go anytime soon, even if there surely was one way or two to kill her and her kind, just as it was possible to get rid of the Originals. Incredible difficult, but possible.

“Are you telling me you can see the dead?!?”

Ariane gave the vampire a stern look.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Damon. And yes, I can see the dead. Not all of them, of course, because those who have really passed on, humans and lucky supernatural beings in other words, they are just gone. But all those who have remained out of Death's realm, yet who are not amongst the living, I can see them. I'm a freaking grim reaper.”

Damon opened his mouth to ask something, but the look he got in return made him shut up.

“Now, if you'd just let me speak.”

The vampire nodded, still wide-eyed... looking at the road, of course.

“I lived in Roma. The roman witches had heard about some Greeks who had managed to achieve immortality and tremendous powers, and, out of jealousy as well as out of fear, they tried to make their own immortals. Twelve of us, men and women, were chosen to be these immortals. We hadn't been told what would happen to us, and we were all terrified when the ritual started. In the end, it was successful, but we all agreed that we'd keep the witches from ever doing that to anyone again. We protected the city until they were all dead, destroying each of their attempts. Then we disappeared, and went to live our immortal lives out of the roman empire.”

Well, it explained the accent, then.

“The ritual didn't make us stronger or faster, though it was performed when we were all in our prime of youth, and after an intensive training, so that we'd be eternally at our best. It did not give us any strange power. But it made us undying, it gave us our scythes, and it made our blood solid enough to withstand anything. Our veins are our armor, and as long as it exist, the rest of our body will get back to its original existence, even if it takes hours.”

“How can you just summon these scythes, anyway?”

Ariane laughed darkly, but answered anyway.

“It was the whole point of the ritual, actually. The witches had made twelves small scythes in a magical metal that I know not to exist naturally. At some point, they melted each scythe, and it gave them exactly three liters of metal for each of us.”

Ariane's face was dark as she went on, but of course, Damon saw none of this. He was too busy staring diligently at the road, as he had been ordered to. So, obviously, there was no way he could have seen the murderous glint in his friend's eyes. It was definitely not because of that glint that he felt a disturbing shiver crawl up his spine.

Not at all.

Keep your eyes on the road, Damon.

“That's when they restrained us. They cut our wrists, to let the blood out on the right one, and to pour the burning metal into our veins on the left one. They were chanting something I couldn't understand, be it because it was in a foreign language, or because of the screams that were escaping from our mouths, or simply because of the pain.”

Keep. Your. Damn. Eyes. On. The. Freaking. Road. Damon!

“Eventually it stopped. The cuts healed by themselves. What was left of our blood and the metal had merged.”

Damon allowed himself to breath at that point, because Ariane's voice had gone down a scale, and it sounded less terrible now.

“You mean your scythe is in fact made of your blood?”

Ariane snorted, and confirmed.

“We were called the grim reapers after a few years. Our blades would cut through anything, and would not be cut by anything. Death seemed not to know of us. And the more important was that we could 'see' people pass on, and their mind disappear in an ocean of peace.”

Damon parked the car, and they got out of the vehicle, heading for the living room of the boarding house. The vampire felt he owed her a good bottle of alcohol for having shared her story. Even turning into a vampire couldn't compare, as to the pain, he guessed.

But Ariane hadn't completely finished her story, and Damon soon noticed he had forgotten something in his bedroom that he wanted to show her. They made their way upstairs as the reaper ended what she had to say.

“But soon, we noticed the supernatural beings didn't disappear like normal people. A few of them would, after a time, but they always got stuck in a dead dimension before that. It was fairly new, this dimension; we understood that because there weren't many people in it yet, but it was becoming more crowded with time. That dead dimension is something artificial, something that wasn't meant to be. It's not a real afterlife, but an anomaly. And so we can see and interact with it, because it's about death, but it isn't truly death. It's the Other Side.”

Damon opened the door to his bedroom, curious as to the exact extent of the grim reapers' interactions with the Other Side. Not that he had an ulterior motive or anything.

Ariane, not to think about her dreadful change, nearly two thousands years ago, asked her vampire of a friend what he had been up to since the Augustine, that he had had to deal with one of the Five and with a psychopathic immortal in les than one month.

But her question never ended, as she stared at Damon's bed. After a time, she stated, rather blankly:

“There's a vampire pouting on your bed. A dead vampire. And by that I don't mean undead.”

 


	9. To scowl and snarl

Alaric stared at the grim reaper with wide eyes, unable to speak. It certainly was the first time such a thing happened to him since his death. Usually, he just didn't bother talking, because people who were not Jeremy couldn't hear him.

But this time, he literally was gobsmacked.

Damon's grim reaper friend, Ariane, could see him.

After all, there wasn't another vampire than himself on Damon's bed right now... Not that he was aware of, if anything. Maybe it was an invisible vampire, and maybe she was simply able to see invisible vampires, but Ric doubted it. Even if he could somehow be counted as an invisible vampire, considering he had died a vampire, and people couldn't see him.

Invisible vampire or vampire ghost, it did not matter. What mattered was that Alaric was pretty sure he was the only vampire pouting... sulking would have been better, but those were Ariane's words, not his... on Damon's bed at the moment.

By the way, he wasn't pouting. Nor sulking, for the matter. He hadn't been worried about his lover disappearing with a corpse and a grim reaper who seemed to resent him for something Damon had done years ago. Not at all.

Of course, he could have followed them, but well. What could his ghostly self do if the big bad grim reaper decided to get her revenge on the vampire? It wasn't as if he was able to interact with anything. And while Alaric couldn't do anything to her, he wasn't so sure about it being true both ways. There was something definitely nasty about the black scythe she had used to kill Connor. Considering Ariane was a freaking grim reaper, the ghost wouldn't bet she couldn't do anything about annoying ghosts that got in her way.

Or at least, that's what he had been thinking when he had watched the car with the vampire, the corpse and the grim reaper in it being driven away. And when he had come to the conclusion that maybe he should have gone with them... Well, the gost had had no idea as to where they were.

So Ric had gone to wait for Damon at the boarding house, hoping against hope that his boyfriend would still be in one piece and very much undead the next time they'd see each other. Alaric was more than aware of Damon's habit of making ennemies out of every people he met, and apparently he had already irked the grim reaper in the past, enough that he had been worried over her coming to Mystic Falls. The ghost also knew the vampire well enough, and if there was one thing that could be said about Damon, it was that he always and without fail managed to say just what wasn't needed to be said at the worst moment.

With such thoughts, it wasn't a surprise that Ric was scowling, and not pouting or sulking, thank you very much, on Damon's bed, waiting for his idiot lover to come back and not see him as usual. While the vampire couldn't see the dead history teacher, the dead history teacher really wanted to make sure the vampire hadn't indulged in any kind of bad and usual behavior. Knowing Damon...

Anyway, it wasn't a surprise, and Alaric would gladly admit that he had been snarling at the door of the room, lying on his stomach, and squinting with a death glare at whoever would pass the door first, when said door opened and let in Damon... and Ariane.

Who could apparently see him.

Because if she couldn't see him, then she wouldn't have seen a “pouting” dead-dead vampire on Damon's bed.

So the logical answer was that she could see him.

A few seconds only had passed since the terrible statement had gone out of Ariane's mouth, and Damon was staring at his bed, helf-expecting Stefan to just appear there, brooding. Of course, it never happened, so the vampire eventually turned to look at his friend with a confused look on his face.

“When you say there's a ghost pouting on my bed...”

Alaric's ghost scowled once more. He was not pouting.

And his brain apparently had yet to reboot, or else he'd have tried to stop what was inevitably going to happen.

Even if Ariane might not have complied, he'd have tried to make her shut up about his continued ghostly presence. One got to try to accomplish anything, and Ric absolutely wanted to accomplish keeping his existence a secret from his favorite vampire. He had no idea as to how Damon would take it, but he knew it wouldn't be good.

But right now, besides the simple reaction of scowling when accused of being pouty, Alaric just couldn't come to the realization of what was happening. It was so unlikely...

Ariane looked at the ghost on her friend's bed, still a bit surprised with the fact that the vampire from the Mystic Grill had actually come here, in Damon's home, in Damon's room, on Damon's bed, to scowl and snarl. On the ground floor, with an imaginary glass of bourbon, she'd have understood. But on Damon's bed?

What was the relationship between the two vampires, exactly?

“I mean that the ghost who was sitting besides you at the bar is lying on his stomach on your bed, and scowling angrily at me as he does so.”

Damon blinked, his eyes going to and fro between his friend and the bed where his boyfriend was supposed to be sulking right now, even if the vampire just couldn't see anything.

“You said he was there too, at the Grill?”

Ariane didn't turn away from the ghost, not even to answer Damon's inquiry. There was something fishy about all this, but she simply couldn't see what.

And there was something wrong with that ghost. Hell, the grim reaper could sense he had been a vampire, she could even tell he had been an Original, however-it-was-freaking-impossible, but it wasn't what was strange. The facts didn't add up, considering she knew what the Originals looked like, and none were supposed to look like this man, but there was no questioning it; this guy had been an Original Vampire. But there was something else, and she simply had no idea what it was supposed to mean, especially when it felt so... familiar.

There was something wrong with this situation, and something wrong with the very core of that ghost.

In other words, the whole thing was suspicious like hell.

“Yes, he was there all along.”

“What does he look like?”

Finally catching up, Ric cursed, and in a second, he was standing on his feet.

“ _Don't tell.”_

Ariane's upper lip twitched at the demand. She was alright with requests, but she hated demands.

Then again, the ghost seemed downright panicked, so she'd let this one pass... Maybe.

“ _If he knows I'm still around, Damon will never let go. And I want him to move on, even if I obviously can't.”_

Ariane's eyebrows shot up as the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. She took an instant to look at the definitely male vampire from head to toes, and while he was obviously very good-looking, she had believed Damon liked his boys...well, girls, really. Finally she turned to look at Damon, and for an instant she wondered if he wasn't standing a bit more femininely than before...

Nah.

Just a trick of her imagination.

Even if she was quite sure about who the woman was... had been in this relationship. Damn, she wished she could just tease Damon with that, it'd be enough fun for at least half a century, she reckoned.

But no, Ariane could understand why this ghost didn't want her to tell the truth to his lover. She had made that mistake, once. Eventually, the other one had ended her life because she couldn't take it, that her lover had been around... but not reachable.

“Dark haired, grey eyes, tallish, male.”

And there it was. A lie. But it was for Damon's sake, and Ariane had long since learned that sometimes, a lie was better than the truth. Not always, mind you, but sometimes. Especially when one of the lovers was ready to suffer seeing the other move on if needed.

At first, Damon seemed confused, obviously oblivious to her lie. Why would there be the ghost of a male vampire looking like that haunting his bed?

But before the confusion could make itself at home on his face, the vampire frowned. There was something wrong with all that. He had been so sure... The ghost had been in the Mystic Grill, with him, and now he had followed him to the boarding house? Yeah, right!

“You're lying. He's a tall, male vampire, with blue eyes and dark blond hair.”

His face basically said that no other lies were allowed. Ariane rolled her eyes, and shrugged.

“You got me. Still, I didn't know you swang that way, back then, Damon.”

The vampire flushed a bright red, but didn't look away.

“Not your business, how I like to be fucked, Ariane. Just tell me it's Alaric and that he asked you to say it wasn't.”

The grim reaper hadn't thought her friend to snap at her, but even in her surprise it only made her snicker a bit more. She was almost two thousand years old, in the name of Jupiter! She had seen more than enough homosexual couples not to judge.

“Calm down, Edward Cullen. Your Bella isn't as I imagined her, especially considering how you told me her name was Katherine, but anyway. If you sparkle both way, good for you.”

Not sure if he ought to be astonished that Ariane even knew about sparkling vampires, Damon only looked away, muttering a bit.

“I don't swing that way. Ric's special, that's all there is to it.”

Ariane arched an eyebrow at her friend, and smirked.

Then her eyes flickered back to the ghost, asking for confirmation: though Damon's description was accurate, she couldn't just assume his name was Alaric. There was, and had been, more than one person on Earth who matched the description, after all. Now, if he had been missing an eye or something...

So she was going to ask the ghost who he was.

The ghost... who wasn't there anymore.

Ariane blinked. Damon grew impatient.

“So?”

The grim reaper blinked again, trying to focus on the fact that one ghost had left the room, and a hallucination had just appeared in the corner of her eye.

She cleared her throat, and turn to look at the bloody hunter of the Five who stood next to her, playing with the knife he had tried to use against her earlier.

“Well, Damon, I'm afraid your sweetheart ran away before I could ask. Now, if you don't mind, I have to deal with a Hunter's curse...”

Ariane had finished her sentence in a murmur, and before Damon could ask what exactly she meant by that, she had walked out of the bedroom. When the vampire went to look after her, he found the boarding house completely empty, except for himself.

And maybe wayward, lying ghosts, he thought bitterly, even if he had no idea if Ric's ghost was actually still in the house or not. For all he could see, Damon was alone, and in the end, that was what mattered.

Ariana stopped a few miles away from the boarding house, and finally paid attention to the multiple hallucinations that had fallen onto her since the first, a few minutes before.

They were hundreds of them, and truly, it wasn't suprising. She had killed a lot in her very long life, between enemies, rogue vampires, murderers, wild werewolves, rapists and other kinds of scum who thought they could do whatever they wanted. And while the Hunter's curse was supposed to work on vampires, because the hunters of the Five couldn't afford to ever be felled by their preys, it also worked on grim reapers. The witch who had created them had made sure it did, after having been told of the chaos brought upon a small town of what would latter be known as Germany.

All this was Ascagne's fault, obviously...

The grim reaper gritted her teeth, and took out her scythe.

She knew the hallucinations wouldn't stop before a new hunter of the Five replaced the one she had killed. The witch hadn't been very thorough in her work, though: grim reapers could hardly kill themselves, and Ascagne's slaughter had began because of madness...

Well, she'd just have to hold on. Besides, the hallucinations died like anyone else... even if they came back after a time.

 


	10. Nothing out of the ordinary in Mystic Falls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something like before 4x06, but events change with everything about Damon, Jeremy and Elena, since it's Ariane who killed Connor, and I still needed a reason for Jeremy to accept becoming one of the Five.  
> As for Damon, he went back into danger-mode.

Jeremy was frowning as he entered the house. He couldn't get the tattoo that had appeared on his arm out of his head. It just kept lurking around, in a corner of his mind, as if bringing with it an ill omen.

Which was, to be frank, certainly the case, considering it was meant to be seen only by potential and actual hunters of the Five, and sported only by the laters. Jeremy had already known he was a potential hunter, from what Connor had told him. And now, one of the five hunters was dead, namely, the very same Connor Jordan. Meaning, a new hunter was to appear. And go figure, the teenager, being a potential hunter, was apparently the one who would fill the place.

As if he could do that.

His sister was a vampire. His sister's boyfriend was a vampire. The brother of his sister's boyfriend was a vampire. One of his sister's best friend was a vampire. His kind-of-friend was a hybrid, between werewolf and vampire.

...Had he forgotten someone else that he desperately didn't want to kill, and that his new status probably meant he had to kill?

He didn't think so. And that was already enough reasons for him not to want to be a hunter of the Five. More than enough reasons. Even if it had only been about Elena...

Jeremy locked the front door, and turned around, planning to grab something to eat in the kitchen. There was probably some pizza left from the last time Alaric's ghost hadn't been stalking him to make sure he ate healthy.

The teenager did not make it to the kitchen.

In fact, he didn't make it anywhere.

Ric was leaning against the wall, a mere few feet away from Jeremy.

The potential / future / current / waiting-for-approval hunter started.

“You scared me. Don't come in unannounced like that, please.”

The ghost didn't react to the teenager's poor attempt at a joke. In fact, he didn't react at all, keeping on observing Jeremy with that strange look in his eyes, that had truly frightened the teenager, from time to time. As if there was only calculation on his mind.

After what felt like an eternity, during which Jeremy didn't dare to move, Alaric finally looked him in the eyes, rather than to simply look at him.

“ _I'm here because you thought of me no so long ago, Jeremy. You should know that. That's why I'm here; I thought it better to wait for you to return at the house, rather than appear somewhere else where people I don't know could secretly see me. And while I could have ignored your unconscious call, it also got me out of trouble with an obsessive vampire boyfriend and a nosy grim reaper. I thank you for that, by the way.”_

Jeremy stared dumbly at the ghost of his previous legal guardian, stuck on the mention of a “grim reaper”, and by the fact that Ric had just implied someone else than him could see the ghost. But before he could succeed in asking anything about either of those points, Ric moved out of the corridor, and towards the living room. The teenager followed, and sat down after seeing the ghost do just that.

Ric looked at him quizzically, frowning a bit.

“ _Is something the matter, Jeremy?”_

The teenager half-choked at the question, and the ghost mused that yes, something was the matter.

As always in Mystic Falls, he should say. When it wasn't something about witches and vampires, it was about hybrids and ghosts. And when it was neither, it could still be grim reapers, werewolves, or cursed people. There was always something to be the matter. Maybe there was a signboard at the entrance of the city, with written “we welcome all supernatural troubles” on it. He'd have to check, just to be sure.

Oh, and there was also the fact that Jeremy had just been taken hostage by a mad supernatural vampire hunter earlier in the day. Nothing out of the ordinary in Mystic Falls.

Finally Jeremy managed to look Alaric in the eyes. He cleared his throat, and gestured to the arm where he could clearly see the Hunter's Mark, though he guessed Ric couldn't.

“Apparently Connor's death triggered my becoming one of the Five.”

Alaric blinked, but his face showed more resignation with the fact that anyway, their lives were crap, than surprise. There was a small silence, during which the ghost wondered what exactly they had done to deserve these hells that were their lives, and Jeremy mused on the fact that people his age didn't usually go around beheading hybrids, vampires and whatnots.

“ _Any special urge to gruesomely murder vampires?”_

“No. Well, for all we know, not yet. Except Damon, but that's to be expected. I don't know how he manages it, but he just grates on your nerves even after you've become somewhat friendly with him. It's as if his very existence was meant to upset people.”

Ric rolled his eyes. He knew the feeling.

Just then, Jeremy's phone rang. The two shared a worried look, wondering what else exactly could go wrong after all that had happened lately.

Because, let's be honest. It could be a classmate calling to borrow the teenager's notes of the last math lesson. It really could. Even if asking Jeremy of all people for such a thing probably meant all the other students in his class had gone missing over the night. Possibly all the students in his year, in fact. Jeremy Gilbert wasn't known to take school really seriously. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. Not that he didn't have reasons for at least half of his non-attendance, but anyway.

So, this phone call could be from a worried student who needed help with math, even if Jeremy wasn't exactly the person to go to for help in such a case.

It could be.

But knowing their luck, it wasn't likely.

“ _Who is it?”_

Better get prepared, Alaric mused.

Even if he wouldn't be able to do anything to help... except giving advices, perhaps.

Jeremy looked at his phone before taking the call, his lips forming a silent “Elena” as he did so.

Ah. One more hint that it wasn't something good. Not that Elena never called for good things. Just that she was the one to whom the worst things happened.

Well, at least it wasn't Damon calling, Ric thought drily.

Jeremy didn't even get the time to say anything, not even a greeting to his sister whom he hadn't seen much lately, as she was trying to control herself better with Stefan's help at the boarding house. Apparently she wasn't the best at controlling her thirst, and it might take a while.

“ _Jeremy, come to the river asap! Damon taunted one of Klaus' hybrids for I-don't-know-and-I-don't-want-to-know-what-reason, and they are fighting. I got shot with a vervein dart, and I can't contact anyone else! Please, hurry!”_

The teenager said nothing, flabbergasted.

“ _Jeremy!”_

“Right. I'm coming. I'll be there shortly. Try not to die in the meantime!”

And he hung up.

Jeremy and Alaric shared an aggravated look, before the former hunter took things into his hands.

“ _Take the stakes in the umbrella holder, and there is an axe under my bed. I don't think there is a crossbow anywhere in the house, you'll have to do without. Take the car, and meet me there. I'll take a look, and tell you the situation once you get there.”_

The teen nodded, already on his way to get the axe.

The ghost disappeared from the Gilbert house, and appeared where he believed he'd find two vampires and an hybrid, two of whom were probably fighting to death. It was the public spot students always came to when they wanted to throw a party and take a dive in the river, not the one on the Lockwoods' estate.

Alaric immediately saw Elena groggily leaning against a fallen trunk, a dozen of meters away from his position. The young vampire was trying not to blink too much, searching for two blurry forms under the water. She had managed to get rid of the vervain dart that the hybrid had used on her when she had tried to intervene, but it had been a strong dose, and she still couldn't stand up. Getting her phone had been difficult enough...

Ric sighed, glad, for once, that Klaus wanted to keep her alive for some reason. He had no doubt as to why the girl had only been verveined; it had to be on Klaus' order.

Then the ghost shifted his attention to the blurry forms fighting underwater.

Ric wasn't sure how exactly, but Damon and the hybrid had ended up in the river, and were still trying to murder each other even so. From where he was, he could see the dark form of the hybrid possibly throttling another form with dark hair and pale skin, that was probably Damon.

Unless Damon had become a black and bald hybrid before he had decided to go and annoy a vampire who looked just like his previous self.

Alaric should have known that, even if it was Elena calling, Damon might have been part of the problem. It wasn't as if his lover tended to act rashly when things didn't go his way. Damon was an example of self-control, as everyone in Mystic Falls knew.

People who knew otherwise were usually the vampire's friends, or dead.

Like Alaric, who was both, and even a bit more.

Forced to watch as the water around the two fighting supernatural beings turned worryingly scarlet, the ghost clenched his teeth with so much strenght he might have found it painful if he had been alive and with a body.

Damon had been too quiet, after his death. He had been too well-behaved. And Ric had assumed the vampire was making progress with grieving!

How could he have been so blind?

If this, this mockery of a fight that he was watching, had not been triggered by Damon learning Alaric had been around all that time, but still refused to let him know, if this wasn't Damon's usual brash reaction to the world, then Ric wasn't a Saltzman. Learning that the ghost was there had triggered something, maybe anger, maybe despair, Ric didn't know, in Damon, and now, there they were. Damon, doing something randomly stupid, and risking people's lives as he did so.

What was it, now?

The vampire wanted to die, maybe, and be with his lover?

Or was it only the selfish, bratty Damon Salvatore reacting to the fact that the world was unfair?

As the two were still fighting underwater, Ric heard the sound of a car's brakes. He disappeared from the riverbank, and appeared again on the side of the road. Jeremy was getting out of the car, axe already in hand.

The teenager saw the ghost, and walked to him, worry on his face.

“I did as quickly as I could.”

“ _Don't worry, Elena's safe. Kind of. Somehow Damon and the hybrid are fighting in the river, and that may have contributed to the fact that they still haven't murdered each other completely.”_

The teen's eyebrows shot up, but he asked nothing. It wasn't as if Alaric knew why the two fighters had ended up in the water. Instead of losing more time chichatting, Jeremy ran into the path, and towards the riverbank, a few meters below.

The teenager first stopped to look at his sister, who was now able to look up... more or less, as her chin still did its best to fall back on her torso, without her consent. The two shared a look, and then Jeremy turned back to the river, searching for Damon and his opponent.

There was more blood in the water than only a minute before, Ric noticed anxiously as he joined the teenager on the riverbank. With the water and the blood, he just couldn't see which of the two fighters was injured.

Even if Damon had started all this by behaving like an idiot, the ghost still hoped he wasn't the one.

Jeremy hesitated an instant, before jumping in the river, axe still in hand. Walking against the water wasn't easy, but he eventually reached the two others. Noticing that it wasn't Damon that was above the hybrid, but the other way around, he raised the axe high in the air...

...Before making it fall fast on the neck of the hybrid, whose eyes had been quite busy bleeding since Damon had shoved his thumbs in them.

The amount of blood the river carried doubled instantly, and the headless body fell on a stunned vampire. If Damon hadn't already been out of air a long time ago, a great bubble of it would have escaped his mouth as he gasped under the unexpected weight.

As for the head of the hybrid, it went with the flow of the river.

 


	11. Nexus ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of this chapter will surely please some people...  
> Just saying.

Damon was being dragged back to the boarding house.

Dragged.

By little Jeremy Gilbert, no less.

By a Jeremy Gilbert who, if the vampire knew anything about body language, was currently doing his best not to stake him without trial. Instead, the teenager was dragging him with unusual strength to his home.

Dragging, because Damon's feet refused to move on their own and lead him back to the boarding house. Or, more accurately, because Damon refused to move his feet so that he'd walk to the boarding house. In other words, that is, in little Gilbert's words, because Damon was being “an annoying blockhead of a stubborn bastard”.

Of course, Damon would not concede that he was sulking because one ghost refused to speak to him, even if through an interposed Ariane. He would not concede that after he had been left alone, once again, with the news that Alaric was still there, just, the prick didn't want to speak to him, he had decided to take a walk and piss off the first person he'd meet on his way, nevermind that said person happened to be an hybrid, and that he knew him to be one. He would not concede that, when Elena had walked upon the growing fight, and tried to put an end to it before it became dangerous, he had made a point of not listening to her. He would not concede that they both had nearly died because of his sour mood.

So now, he was being dragged back to his home by the little brother of the girl he had almost gotten killed with his idiocy. And even if Damon would not concede that his actions had been totally unnecessary, there was a part of him which couldn't really deny it. That was the reason, surely, why he wasn't putting up much of a fight as he was being dragged back to the boarding house, even if he certainly wasn't helping Jeremy in his task either.

The teenager tossed the vampire in his car, his features unreadable, but his grip strong.

“Be nice, Damon, and keep quiet. I just activated the Hunter's Mark, and it has the great effect of making me want to off you on the spot, just because I know you are a vampire. With the stunt you just pulled, and with the danger it caused for Elena, I have half a mind to simply let the instinct control me. So you'd better keep quiet.”

The vampire glared at the teen, but said nothing. Even if he had taunted that hybrid with something akin to a hope that he'd get killed in the process, and that he wouldn't have to deal with knowing that Ric didn't want to talk to him, he had realized during the fight that dying wouldn't do. In all his self-pity, he had failed to take into account that, just like Alaric, he'd be stuck on the Other Side for at least a few years, as long as he wouldn't be at peace.

Which would not be an improvement from being a vampire at all, considering that even if Ric changed his mind about talking to him, once on the Other Side, there would really be no mean to speak... unless they had a grim reaper or someone like Jer somewhere up their sleeves, of course.

Speaking of which...

Damon gave an inconspicuous stank eye to the teenager, who was gripping the steering wheel as if his life depended on it. If Alaric had been around for more than two minutes a day, Jeremy ought to have known, and the kid hadn't said anything, even after all the time Damon had spent training him. Ungrateful git.

What the vampire didn't know, was that it wasn't Jeremy's life that depended on how strongly he held his hands on the steering wheel. Or at least, not any more than for anyone else who could be driving, and definitely shouldn't let go of the wheel, lest they died in a terrible accident.

It was Damon's life that depended on the teenager's grip, for as long as Jeremy managed not to release his grasp, it meant he managed not to lunge at the vampire with the stake that was hidden in his sleeve.

“ _Just drop him at the boarding house, Jeremy. Then you can go somewhere where there are no vampires, and where you won't be tempted to kill you friends. I'll take care of Damon's... attitude.”_

The teen didn't turn to look at the ghost sitting on the back seat, nor did he respond. He did not know what Ric was planning to do to get his boyfriend to stop acting like a dangerous idiot, and couldn't see how the ghost thought he would be able to do anything, but right now his mind was too polluted with the urges of the Five. He had almost gone after Elena when he had wanted to make sure she was alright, for God's sake!

Jeremy had barely stopped the car before the alley of the boarding house that he opened the door on Damon's side.

“Get out.”

The hunter of the Five made a point not to look at the vampire as he got out, and so he missed the dark look Damon sent him, but it was for the best. Jeremy wasn't sure how his newly awoken powers would take any more temptation from a vampire.

As soon as Damon closed the door of the car, refraining with difficulty from snapping at Jeremy, the teenager drove out. The vampire stayed there, glaring at the car, as it went further and further away, for a good minute. As a result, he failed to register the presence next to him, until the person it belonged to made themselves known by clearing their throat.

Damon spun on his heels, but his reaction stopped there.

Ariane was glaring at him, and she really didn't seem to be in the mood.

Great. Now he wasn't the only one. The problem being that Ariane was harldy someone he wanted to upset, now that he had come to the conclusion that he didn't want to die.

“Apparently you need counselling, brat.”

“Err...”

“Don't try to make it sound like it wasn't your fault. A ghost told me everything I needed to know, and I've known you for long enough that I have no doubts as to how the situation ended up as it was, with you fighting a hybrid in a river.”

For a moment Damon could only blink, really feeling as if he was being told off by the dad his father had never been.

Then it sank in.

“Ric told you?”

The grim reaper declined to answer, and indicated the boarding house with a flick of the wrist. Now Damon was feeling as if there was a spanking awaiting him as soon as they'd get out of sight.

Still, he made his way inside.

It wasn't as if he could simply ignore a grim reaper's order.

Ariane closed the door behind them, and her eye searched for the ghost she knew to have followed Damon all the way from the river, except for the half minute he had spent informing her of what had transpired. She had a good enough idea as to what exactly he hoped she would do about Damon's behavior, that is, talk to him, and maybe tell him it wasn't a good idea for the vampire to continue pinning after a dead lover.

She'd have done just that, really, if she hadn't seen the look in her friend's eyes.

There was no talking with Damon Salvatore on some subjects, and apparently, this one was one of those.

Ariane sighed, as she let herself fall into an armchair.

Surprised, Damon sat on the sofa where the ghost was already seated. The grim reaper smiled slightly at the fact, because even if Damon had not known his boyfriend to be just there, he had still sat next to him.

Looking at the ghost, Ariane finally spoke.

“Did the idiot manage to deal with his own shit?”

The said idiot looked like he wanted to protest at being called just that, but the ghost next to him ignored his lover's indignation.

“ _Jeremy, a potential hunter of the Five, got rid of the hybrid for him. The idiot's lucky he wasn't bitten in the fight, but I guess fighting underwater prevented that from happening, if it did any good. We now have one of the Five amongst our friends, which is definitely not great at all, and it seems Elena will thus come to live here indefinitely, since Jeremy's her brother, and she's a newly turned vampire. Really not a good combination.”_

Alaric glanced at the vampire next to him, annoyance clearly visible on his face.

Clearly visible to Ariane, that is, since he was a ghost, and only her could see him.

“ _Still, the idiot managed to do one thing right: he thought to call his brother to take care of his shocked girlfriend before being dragged here by our very new and personal hunter of the Five.”_

Ariane smirked the second time the ghost called Damon an idiot. The vampire was staring suspiciously at the space next to him, obviously wishing dearly that he could hear what was being said that made the grim reaper smirk...or simply that he could actually be sure he was staring at the right place. Which wasn't the case, in fact. It wasn't easy, really, for Ariane not to laugh as Damon stared suspiciously at his boyfriend's right shoulder.

She schooled her features, just in case something else made her lose her calm.

Then she looked back at her utterly deplorable vampire of a friend.

Damon's back instinctively straightened.

“Damon, you realize that what you did didn't put only yourself in danger, but other people as well?”

Ariane was feeling a bit silly lecturing a murderous vampire like that, but well. Maybe Damon actually needed someone to do it for him once in a while, so that it'd get inside his thick head.

The vampire had to fight the urge to sarcastically drawl his answer, way too aware of the glare he'd get from the grim reaper if he did it, and not at all aware that Alaric's ghost was already doing just that.

“I suppose that fighting with someone cannot be without two individuals at least being in danger.”

“Of course. But what about the ones you put in danger by ignoring their plea for you to stop, and forcing them to try and help?”

“I never asked for Elena's help.”

Ric rolled his eyes, frustrated that he couldn't berate Damon himself.

“ _As if you'd ask for anyone's help! But you knew she'd try to stop it. And asking for help or not, without Jeremy, you could very well be dead now. And as if you putting the two of them in danger wasn't enough, now you have made the boy trigger his Hunter's Mark. Jeremy has become a threat to most of those he cares for because of you, Damon!”_

Ariane kindly relayed the ghost's message, but the vampire only shrugged noncommittally. If Damon hadn't been avoinding her gaze, she'd have thought he really didn't care.

But her friend had changed, since the Augustine. It was obvious to Ariane, who had seen him caring about his brother and that Katherine vampiress, but not about many other people. She had even heard him swear revenge upon that guy from his family who had literally sold him to the Augustine. At the time, Damon had not cared about many, and certainly not about people who were potential enemies, as was this Jeremy boy.

The vampire had changed; he even happened to care for humans in general, though not so much that he'd sacrifice himself for them if it came to that. Still, from what the grim reaper had seen, it was a huge improvement of his personality.

Ariane looked in silence at the two lovers who sat before her, one glaring at the other who had no idea of the first one's action, and she eventuelly came to a decision.

“Be aware that I wouldn't do that for just anyone, brat.”

Damon frowned, surprised by her words, but his words were stopped from leaving his throat as the grim reaper produced a black ring with no stone, but with a free space that seemed made for one.

“ _What is it?”_

“Damon, I need your blood. And this is a nexus ring. With both your bloods in it, and some of my reaper's blood too, it will allow the two linked person to see each other, even through death, as long as they are present.”

Damon bit the tip of his finger almost eagerly, but Ric seemed a bit reluctant. Ariane could see why, especially after the vampire's reaction at the news, but because of that very reaction, she knew this was the best thing to do, even if it was bad.

“Alaric, please. My scythe can cut you, even if you are dead, and even if the idiot should learn to live without you, I don't want him to be the cause of more deaths for the sole reason he can't cope.”

The ghost sighed, knowing it to be true.

Ariane took out her scythe.

And three drops of blood fell onto the ring, magically creating a blood red stone in the vacant space.

 


	12. "Hi, love."

Ariane brought the nexus ring to her mouth and exhaled a soft breath onto it. The center of the red stone turned black, but not its borders.

The grim reaper observed the ring for a few seconds, a satisfied look on her face, then she handed it to Damon.

“You'll see him as soon as you'll wear it. Now, if you excuse me...”

And she made her way to the door, visibly not keen on spying onto the two lovers' reunion.

Damon stared for a moment at the ring in his hand, dumbfounded, but the sound of the front door being opened startled him out of his daze. The vampire sought Ariane with his eyes, but only managed to get a glimpse of her retreating back.

“Thanks!”

He had blurted out the word without really thinking, but as he realized what he had just said, Damon felt that no other words could have been more appropriate.

Alone once again in the boarding house, but not for long he hoped, Damon tentatively passed the nexus ring. He kept his eyes closed as he did so, half-afraid that Ariane had just made a fool out of him, or that it hadn't worked, and, in the end, he wouldn't see Ric when he'd open his eyes.

The ghost watched as the vampire stayed there, ring on a finger of his right hand, but unable to open his eyes and just verify whether or not he could now see him.

After a moment, though, Alaric got fed up with the wait. He walked to the vampire, and stopped just behind him, glancing at the ring above Damon's shoulder.

“ _Come on, Damon, open your bloody eyes. There's not point in stalling...”_

Ariane had not said that they could hear each other, though she had specified that they would be able to see each other thanks to the nexus ring. Maybe that's why Ric hadn't expected Damon to react to his voice. Or maybe it was only because he had spent so much time not being heard, except by Jeremy, that he hadn't realized.

Damon's eyes shot open, and the vampire turned on his heels to face the source of that voice which he knew so well, but hadn't been able to hear for so long. The two lovers found themselves staring into the other's wide-open eyes, their faces only a few inches apart.

Damon's ice blue eyes couldn't look away from Ric's gentle blue ones, as if he couldn't be sure of what he was seeing.

Not really surprising when he remembered the many dreams he had had where he'd see him again.

But there, at least, he could be sure this was real. In none of his dreams Damon could make out Ric's face clearly. It was always a bit blurry, or when it wasn't, the vampire had a feeling it wasn't quite right, that this line shouldn't be here, but there, that the jaw was a bit too smooth, the nose not straight enough. Same things with the colors. It wasn't exactly the right blue, the skin tone was never as it should be...

He knew, in these dreams, that it wasn't Alaric, because it looked like him, without trully being him. And he feared that he just couldn't remember exactly how Ric was supposed to be.

The ghost took a step back, uncertainty visible on his face.

“ _Hi, Damon.”_

The vampire croaked a laugh, taking back the step Alaric had put between them.

“Hi, love.”

But Ric stepped back once again, as if aware of something that had escaped Damon's notice, something that would possibly kill the incredible joy he was feeling right now.

The vampire didn't like it, and stepped forward once more, the look on his face clearly a challenge for the ghost to step back once again, for him to keep his distance even when wasn't what either of them wanted.

“ _Damon, stop it.”_

“Why would I!?”

His tone was aggressive, filled with all the frustration from the preceding weeks of loneliness. He had yearned to hear this voice, to see this face, to touch this person. And now that he had been granted his first two wishes, he'd have to back down for the third one? Never!

Damon didn't care that Alaric was dead. The vampire too was technically dead. He didn't care that no one but him, and Ariane and Jeremy, true, but they didn't count, could see the ghost. His relationship was for him only, and not to be seen by others. He didn't care that Ric wasn't really there, living on the same plane as him. He was there, and it was good enough.

So what if it wasn't healthy, being in love with a ghost? Damon had never lived a healthy life. Murdering people, holding a century old grudge towards his brother and pinning after Katherine for all these years had been far from healthy.

At least Alaric made him a better person, unlike Katherine.

But the sad look in Ric's eyes quickly quenched his anger.

A knot formed in the vampire's stomach. He didn't know what was the matter, but he could clearly see that the ghost wasn't rejecting him out of choice. There was a problem, and he had the feeling he would find out at one point or another. Ric was trying to postpone the discovery, but...

But it wouldn't change the facts.

“ _Do you really want to know why?”_

No, he didn't. But facts and wishes never worked well together, or at least not for him.

“Go on. I'll know soon enough, anyway, won't I? Better to get rid of my hopes.”

Alaric never ceased to smile, even if his smile was sad, as his hand moved up to the vampire's face. Something sorrowful flickered in the ghost's eyes, and the tips of his fingers touched Damon's face delicately. The vampire's body suddenly felt heavy, as if an anvil had been hidden in each of his feet all this time, and he had failed to notice until now. Ric's hand slithered to his chin, and then fell back to the ghost's side.

Then the smile died.

Damon reached for Alaric's face, as if for confirmation, but he already knew.

How could he have forgotten?

“ _I am still dead, Damon.”_

No matter how the vampire tried to feel something, as his fingers touched Ric's cheek, there was nothing. It was as if he was caressing thin air. Ric was there, but he wasn't here. He had no materiality. He had no body. Damon couldn't feel a thing, no skin, no body heat, not even some kind of wrongness or of coldness at touching a ghost.

“ _I am still a ghost.”_

Alaric wasn't here, even if it looked like he was.

Damon tried to think positively. He should have guessed that even Ariane couldn't make his life an eternal sunrise. She was a grim reaper, not an angel or a god. This nexus ring was enough of a gift already. At least, now he could see and speak with Ric. It was better than before.

So the vampire hid his heartache, and pulled a mischievous grin on his features. Immediately, Alaric squinted at him, suspicious.

“Alright! No need to dwell on what can't be changed. I...”

Damon stopped talking as he heard the sound of the front door being opened. Stefan's and Elena's voices could be heard, and the vampire's grin turned from mischievous to calculating.

Before he could say anything else, though, Ric sent him a pointed look.

“ _I believe you have to apologize for inconsiderate behavior.”_

“Do I?”

Damon's innocent face having grown more than ineffective over the time they had known each other, Alaric didn't even bother to glare, only continuing with the pointed look. The vampire sighed, shrugged, rolled his eyes, and made up a sorry face before turning to look at the two who had entered the room. Still, he muttered one last thing towards his personal ghost.

“Of course I do. Who do you think I am? Wait, don't answer that.”

Then, looking Elena in the eyes, he apologized profusely, before asking if, maybe, he could use the Gilbert family lake house, just the time for him to sort his feelings, with the added benefit that he wouldn't be there bothering his brother and her. Elena hesitated a bit, obviously searching for the catch. Damon refrained from rolling his eyes once more; the girl knew him too well, but this time, if he had hidden motives, it wasn't anything bad. Eventually she relented, hoping nothing too terrible would come out of it.

Damon grinned so much as he left the boarding house that it didn't reassure neither Elena nor Stefan, and that Alaric stared suspiciously at him before disappearing, already heading for the lake house... and dreading what was to come. With Damon, one was never too cautious.

But when the vampire arrived at the lake house, he only had groceries with him. A long way from the damonic plan the ghost had been anticipating.

“ _What are you planning to do with that, exactly?”_

The vampire eyed him as if he had lost his mind, before giving a simple answer.

“Cooking.”

“ _Good, I was worried you were planning on making a sacrifice to the spirits of dead witches with a frozen chicken. No, really, Damon, what are you planning?”_

The vampire stopped cutting said frozen chicken just the time to look up at the ghost who was leaning against the kitchen island, next to him. He smiled mysteriously, and went back to cooking.

“You'd like to know, wouldn't you?”

So Alaric was reduced to watch bemusedly as Damon occasionally grinned at the chicken he was cooking. Saying it wasn't a bit disturbing would be a lie. It was utterly strange, and the ghost just couldn't bring himself not to believe there was something fishy about Damon's behavior.

Of course, when the vampire started putting candles everywhere and set a table for two, the mystery started to uncover.

Around a quarter to ten, Ric found himself sitting on a chair, eye to eye with Damon, as the vampire served the wine in their glasses. The ghost really didn't know what to say at this point, and it only became worse when a plate of spaghetti bolognese was put before him.

“ _You realize I can't eat nor drink, don't you?”_

Damon smiled a bit. He hadn't let his eyes off his lover, ghostly as he was, since he had begun eating, even if sometimes he almost missed his plate and stabbed at the table as a result. Luckily, he had enough experience eating while flirting for it not to be obvious.

“Don't be silly, I'll be eating your share. It would be a shame to waste my delicious cooking.”

The vampire made a highly suggestive face as he finished his plate of spaghetti... before stealing Ric's. Not that the ghost cared, as he couldn't eat anyway.

“ _Then why the romantic dinner?”_

“Well, 'had to mark your return, even if you're still dead. I figured it was as good as anything else...”

“ _Besides the fact that I can't eat nor drink, you mean?”_

“Romantic still. You don't mind if I take your wine? No? Thanks. And who said this was all I had for this evening? The candles illumination can be used for much more than this romantic dinner.”

But Damon wouldn't say anymore, and the ghost had to wait for the dinner to end. The vampire took his time, enjoying how Alaric seemed more and more dubious as to the upcoming end of this peculiar date. When he finally stood up, he still did not say anything, only walking around the room, extinguishing the candles.

The ghost and the vampire soon could only see the light from the one room which candles hadn't been snuffed out. Damon led the way upstairs, from where the faint light came, and Ric noted that the vampire had gone out of his way for him not to notice as he had put and lit the candles there earlier. When the ghost saw which room it was, he wasn't as surprised anymore.

Damon began to slowly undress, making a show of his perfect body, and while Alaric could certainly appreciate the view, he felt obliged to point out the very small problem with Damon's likely plan.

“ _I think we've already established I cannot touch you for real, Damon. I'm sure you've been sex-deprived lately, but still. This isn't going to work.”_

The vampire glared at him, but said nothing, as he went to sit, naked, on the bed. Ric kept quiet then, watching as his lover slowly touched himself, first masturbating, then his other hand going for his ass, putting one finger, then two, then three. After a time, the ghost went to sit next to his lover.

“ _This is a bit lonely, no?”_

Damon smiled at him.

“It was, but it isn't anymore.”

 


	13. Improvement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title might be slightly ironic.
> 
> Set after the end of 4x09, all the major changes to the storylines that haven't appeared in the previous chapters are told in the first part of the chapter, I think.

The following days passed rather peacefully.

Peacefully, for Mystic Falls, of course. There were one or two skirmishes between vampires and hybrids, but no one died, so it could be called a peaceful time. There was drama, as always, but drama, in Mystic Falls, could turn out to be pretty dangerous. As no one was maimed / killed / buried-alive-in-an-old-church as a result, Damon felt confident that things were pretty tame yet.

Yes, Caroline and Tyler had finally fallen out because Vampire Barbie had enough of his plotting with the beautiful werewolf, Hayley, and, let's be honest, because Caroline was getting more and more affected by Klaus. The Original had not done anything really hateful for some time, truth to be told, and he was even helping with the whole hunters of the Five thing, though he did it in his own, self-centered way. Alaric's ghost spent half his time with Damon, the other half with Jeremy and Bonnie, who were trying to figure out a way to lessen the teenager's new anti-vampires instincts. Bonnie also studied supernatural things with a Professor Shane, whom she had met at Whitmore College. Elena was finally getting the hang of controlling her blood lust, thanks to Stefan's help. Ariane and Magdalena had met, and become fast friends; apparently, the Falkenbach had started searching for her “gone” cousin...

In one word, drama. No one had died, even if emotions were running high, and that was more than the Mystic Falls inhabitants usually got.

But speaking of drama, it was starting again with Damon, and Alaric was too busy worrying about everything else to help the vampire. Besides, given the nature of Damon's predicament, Ric couldn't do anything to help him. In fact, it was exactly that, the point of Damon's newfound reason to be depressed: the ghost was still a ghost.

Sometimes, Alaric wondered if the vampire wasn't simply searching for a reason to be depressed. Because, really, Damon could have waited a bit longer before falling back into depression.

Well, to be honest, it was still better than before. Damon hadn't gone totally depressed yet. He knew to appreciate the fact that he could see his ghostly boyfriend. Only, from time to time, usually after 10 p.m., he'd get moody, and take a drink. And another one. And another one.

Sure, it was only from ten to roughly two in the morning, unlike before. Before had been more like twelve hours out of the twenty-four hours in a day. Improvement.

More or less.

So, aside from the two hours when the vampire and the ghost would brood, Damon because of Ric, and Ric because of Jeremy's situation, because of Magdalena's investigation, because of Klaus' various plots that were sure to unfold sooner or later, the following days weren't so bad. Damon would even smile most of the time, and the ghost was relieved to have more than one person to talk to. Even if it had only gone up by two people, Ariane and Damon.

The vampire had even gone back to snooping around into others' business.

Stefan's, to begin with, because his little brother was acting suspiciously buddy-buddy with Klaus. On that, Damon had yet to learn much, because Stefan had caught him seemingly speaking to no one and was apparently worried for his sanity. The fool. Damon had never been sane. At that point of the older vampire's ranting to Alaric, Damon usually snorted, and Ric kept quiet, unwilling to contradict him.

Of course, Damon had not been talking to no one back then, but to the ghost, who was his little secret for now. He already had to share Ric with Jeremy and Ariane, though the grim reaper didn't matter quite as much as she hadn't known the history teacher beforehand. Damon wasn't in the mind to share his personal ghost any more than that just yet.

The vampire had also began to snoop around one Atticus Shane, the man who had taken the job of Bonnie's grandmother after her passing away, occult studies teacher. The guy had shown up not long before, and Damon had found him pretty suspicious. He always told Ric so, during their brooding sessions after ten o'clock in the evening. That is, when he wasn't too concerned with his glass of bourbon. Or with his glass of tequila. Or with his glass of scotch. It depended on if he had already finished all the bourbon.

Anyway, between hangovers and another drinking night, Damon had met Atticus Shane, and he had found him suspicious. Why didn't matter, or so he said, but the man was suspicious. Moreover, the guy was being friendly to Judgy, and the vampire thought that especially suspicious. Who in their right mind would be friendly with Judgy?

Elena had scowled at this part of the older vampire's explanation, the day before. Alaric had rolled his eyes. Damon had ignored the two of them.

Atticus Shane was shady, even if Ric would argue that it wasn't because the man was befriending Bonnie.

And since Professor Shane was shady and knew a great deal about everything supernatural, Damon snooped around. Sometimes with a big grin on his face. It was a bit freaky, to say the truth. When the vampire did that, Alaric wondered what had happened to the brooding Damon of the nights before.

Still, he liked better to see him smiling than crying. And the ghost agreed that Shane was a dubious character. The two had decided to go and take a look at the man's office at the end of the week. When Shane was away, of course.

The good point with being a ghost, Alaric mused, as he watched Damon taking yet another shot of alcohol, was that he would never be caught where he wasn't meant to be. For one obvious reason, people tended to overlook, sorry, to be unable to see him. Really great for one who wanted to be in places they weren't supposed to be.

Damon made his drink twirl in his glass with a flick of his wrist, before gulping it down. Then he looked with blurry eyes at the ghost beside him, who was making an illusionary drink do exactly the same, though the ghost didn't gulp it down. It was an illusionary drink, after all.

Alaric looked up from his illusionary glass and at his not-so-illusionary lover.

Damon was looking at him with a puppy face.

“Why did you die?”

The ghost blinked for a long time, and glanced back at the vampire, who really looked like someone had put his favorite puppy on fire before his very eyes, before throwing Rocky's mutilated body in the river. Considering Damon didn't have a puppy named Rocky that could have suffered all that, it was disturbing. Of course, some people might argue that what was disturbing was the fact that Alaric had even considered such an event to happen, but the ghost had seen enough of Mystic Falls to know everything was possible, even putting puppies on fire and throwing the bodies in the river.

So, as Damon didn't have a puppy named Rocky, the puppy face had most likely been triggered, not by a poor puppy, but by Alaric's death.

What it said about the two's relationship, will not be adressed here. Even if it could suggest that the vampire considered the history teacher his puppy pet.

“ _Because that's what happens when someone is killed.”_

The answer had been slow, almost tentative, as if the ghost was waiting for the vampire to burst out. Crying, or in anger. The two were possible.

Damon went back to staring at his drink. The alcohol was twirling wistfully in the glass, and the puppy face was still there. Ric glanced at the bottles next to the vampire. It wasn't as if Damon had had that much to drink, no?

The vampire's voice startled him again.

“I want a hug.”

The ghost let out a strangled laugh, not knowing what to say to that. He couldn't do anything like a hug, but at least he should have something to say, right?

Just then, as if to save Alaric from the awkward situation, the front door of the lake house opened, catching Damon's attention. The depressed vampire turned his head to look at the door, but made no attempt to move, even when he caught sight of his visitor. Or should he say, visitors? One wasn't exactly conscious, but she sure as hell was present... And wait, what was this smell?

Blood?

“Make yourself at home.”

Ariane arched both eyebrows at the tone of her old friend, her mouth set into a displeased twist. The grim reaper soon enough saw the cause of Damon's lack of response, and she scowled. He could at least help her get the mayor to one of the bedrooms.

“Great, another one who got too much to drink. Come and help me, you oaf, I have someone to save.”

“ _Someone to save? Damon, get your ass over here, Carol Lockwood is a right mess.”_

The grim reaper looked up from the inebriated and wounded woman in her arms, and wasn't surprised to see Alaric Saltzman's ghost standing before her. Damon was making his way towards them, grumbling. It was more than probable that he was only complying because the ghost had told him to. From what she had seen of their relationship so far, Saltzman could get more from the vampire than anyone else. Even if Damon Salvatore remained himself; meaning, he still did many things as he pleased.

“Thanks for getting Damon to work, but since you're here, shouldn't you be stopping him from getting drunk like that?”

Foolish question, of course, because Damon did what he wanted, even if he happened to accept the ghost's opinion from time to time. But still, she couldn't help but to ask, as her eyes fell once more on the several bottles of alcohol on the dining table.

The vampire got past the ghost, and frowned at the unconscious mayor Ariane was trying to get up the stairs. Carol Lockwood was soaked, but not only with water. There was quite a lot of blood on her too, and he could see several scratches on her face.

“As if Ric could prevent me from drinking in his disembodied state. What happened?”

The grim reaper sighed as she let Damon take the woman to a bedroom himself. She didn't have super-strength like vampires, after all, and she had had to carry the woman from the town to the lake house by herself.

“Long story short, Klaus Mikaelson found out what her son was up to, and it didn't please him, so he tried to drown her in the foutain after the end of the Winter Wonderland party. I saw what happened and stopped him, forcing her out of the water before it was too late, but I had to drop her when Klaus attacked me back, hence the scratches. The blood is Klaus', I took his arm off, not that it won't grow back, he's an Original, after all. Then I ran all the way here.”

The three supernatural beings were now in a small bedroom. Damon put the mayor on the bed as he listened to the tale, and sneered.

“Of course Lockwolf had to anger the All-powerful wolf-vamp. And people wonder why I don't like the teen! Now we'll have to calm Klaus...”

The vampire squinted, searching for a pulse, before bitting his hand and giving a bit of blood to Carol Lockwood. She wasn't mortally wounded, thanks to Ariane's intervention, but her fall would cause a few bruises in addition to the scratches if he didn't do anything.

Once they had made sure the woman would live, the three left the bedroom and went back down to the dining room.

Damon let himself fall on a chair, clearly annoyed but sober once more. Ah, the wonders of vampirism!

“Now, how do we deal with the Original Bastard?”

“ _The first thing is to get the mayor out of town for a few days, for the sake of her health, for example. It wouldn't even be a real lie. Then we could try and convince Klaus not to murder us all, and her first...”_

Alaric had slipped back into his Falkenbach-mode, voice devoid of all emotions. Ariane looked at him with squinted eyes, as if something was coming back to her, that she hadn't yet realized with him being a ghost and all that. Damon observed the two, frowning, but whatever it was that the grim reaper had realized, it wasn't the point right now. They had to get out of Wolf Boy's mess.

“I'll go with her. I'm pretty sure Klaus isn't happy with me after the whole I-got-his-arm-off thing, and my being present during the peace negotiations wouldn't be wise.”

“ _Exactly. And you would be able to protect the mayor if he sends one of his lackeys.”_

“I might even take Magdalena with us. That would keep her from investigating your 'disparition'...”

The three supernatural beings eventually agreed on a plan of action, and Ariane went back up the stairs, mentally preparing herself to announce to Carol Lockwood that she was going on a trip.

Damon, him, had to mentally prepare himself for Operation Calm-the-Wolf-King. Great. Really.

 


	14. Operation Calm-the-Wolf-King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere around 4x14... I think. Maybe 4x13. Anyway.

Operation Calm-the-Wolf-King was going pretty smoothly. Damon had taken upon himself to play the part of an ambassador, with Alaric whispering at his ear to prevent the vampire from saying just the thing that shouldn't be said. Though, whispering wasn't actually needed, as Klaus couldn't exactly hear the ghost anyway.

The Original had pouted, sorry, Damon-speech here, had been rather adamant that he would not tolerate Ariane's meddling at first, true. But luckily for Damon, Ariane and Carol Lockwood, the two latters were not in Mystic Falls. Damon didn't even know where the grim reaper and the woman had gone, because Ric was acting as a talkie-walkie... sorry, as their contact. He could, after all, appear in and out of their hiding spot in a matter of instants, and no one could spy on him... Unless they were Damon, thanks to the nexus ring, Ariane because she was a grim reaper, or Jeremy with his near-death experience and his emotional link to the history teacher.

As it was very unlikely for Klaus to have another grim reaper who would be working for him, without Ariane knowing it, Alaric was the most discreet contact they could hope for.

But Damon had reminded the Original that he didn't actually want Carol dead, as the thousand years old hybrid kind of liked her, that he only wanted revenge on Tyler. Then the vampire had brought up the sensitive topic of Caroline Forbes, and pointed out that Klaus wasn't going to endear himself to her by killing either her probably-future-mother-in-law or her boyfriend. Which was a small lie, as Caroline was definitely done with Tyler, not that Klaus needed to know. In fact, it would even work to the Original Hybrid's advantage if he could... overlook Tyler's rebellious attitude, and let it go for this time. If he did that, and the younger hybrid went on with his scheming, then he would be ungrateful, and Klaus could get his rightful revenge without getting in Caroline's bad books.

When Ric had suggested that idea, Damon had given him an odd look. Klaus had noticed the strange moment, but it had been pushed out of his thoughts when Damon had actually repeated the ghost's idea. Niklaus Mikaelson seemed to be really smitten with Caroline, after all, and it was obvious that he was making efforts to be less of a bastard... Just, not enough efforts, and he often reverted back to his villainous ways, reason why the fair lady had been so hesitant to give in to his charms and let go of Tyler's problematic attitude.

So far, the negotiations had gone well enough, so, and even Carol Lockwood had agreed to keep Klaus' own problematic attitude and misdeeds a secret, if the Original promised not to murder her when she'd get back in town. It wasn't easy, because Klaus and promises were a fickle combination at best, but it was better than nothing, considering the mayor refused to go and live somewhere else. Ariane didn't really fear Klaus, but she wasn't keen on the idea that they'd have to fight again... and again... and again, if the situation didn't settle down, so she was more than willing to cooperate, as long as she was free to go wherever she wanted. Klaus had first suggested for her to keep out of “his” territory. It hadn't been very well received.

Damon wished to point out, though, even if they were now at a standstill, these negotiations had just gone waaaaay better and had lasted waaaaay longer than what was usual for Mystic Falls.

The thing was, while Damon, Alaric and Klaus were busy trying to agree on a way that would not cause the death of anyone, the other people in the small city had lived. And their drama had unfolded too. The Shady Shane had told Jeremy and Stefan about a cure to vampirism, some time ago, and now the two and Elena had come to the conclusion that for them to find said Cure, they had to kill the Original Kol. And they had done just that.

In normal circumstances, Damon wouldn't even have blinked at the decision. Actually, he didn't like the Kold Bastard. And yes, “Original Bastard” was already taken, so he had to find another derogative nickname. Anyway, getting Kol out of the way wasn't exactly a problem to him.

And the fact that said Kold Bastard had compelled the vampire to try and kill Jeremy during the last week certainly wasn't working in Kol's favor, true. But.

But it just so happened that the Kold Bastard was the Original Bastard's brother, and that Damon was in fact trying to negotiate peace with said Original Bastard. So things weren't exactly... looking good, right now.

But it just so happened that the two only persons who could have fought, and would have been willing to fight, Klaus off long enough for everyone to run away before they were brutally murdered were either a ghost, or not here. Meaning, Alaric was kind of unable to do anything, even if he was the ghost of an Enhanced Original plus a man cursed with assassination instincts, because the important word here was “ghost”. Meaning, Ariane was somewhere else, protecting Carol Lockwood from the very same Original Bastard. Meaning, they were screwed.

Oh, and did Damon forget to mention that now, Klaus was trapped in the Gilbert's house? Yes? Well, now he had thought it.

The vampire scowled, and shook his head. All this, before, was a brief summary of his last days. Sometimes he wondered why he wasn't fervently wishing for the supernatural to simply be eradicated from the surface of Earth. It would make his life so much easier... Then he would remember that it was this supernatural that allowed him to live right now.

That's why he was scowling, by the way.

On the other side of the magical barrier, Klaus snorted.

“Aren't I the one who should be angry at being here? You're not stuck in this house, are you? And no one killed your brother.”

Invisibly sitting on the couch, Alaric's ghost nodded. He totally saw why Kol's murder would anger the hybrid. Even if he didn't like Kol any more than Damon did.

“ _He's got a point, you know. You're not stuck in the house, unlike him. Though I have to say, if Kol hadn't been killed, Jeremy would have been, and it would be Elena sulking and calling for revenge for her brother's murder, which is much more sleep-depriving for me than Kol Mikaelson's death.”_

There the ghost squinted at some point of the ceiling.

“ _Not that I can sleep, of course.”_

This, made Damon snap. Why did Ric had to defend Klaus, of all people?

“Don't defend him, you dick. And yes, someone killed my brother. My father did, a few decades ago. 'Killed me too, parenthetically.”

Klaus' eyebrows shot up. The Original seemed... amused. Wasn't he the one who was willing to gut them all, not even ten hours ago? Something about Karate Kid murdering his beloved troublemaker of a bloody vampiric brother?

“Technicalities. Stefan is... un-alive right now. Speaking of which, my father / step-father / trash-father killed us too... 'Must be the reason why we're so shitty at family stuff, you and I.”

Ric laughed drily, having himself some family issues, though not with his father.

“ _You should start a club. But I'm quite sure that the fact you don't care about people in general might have something to do with your issues.”_

Damon threw a sponge at the ghost, who winced when the soaked thing fell through him. It still was strange, when such things happened. But it was better than when it was a living thing, person, animal, or monster, because those pushed him out of the way...

“Shut up.”

This time, Klaus did not let the odd behavior go by. It wasn't the first time he had witnessed the vampire speaking to someone who wasn't him, or here for the matter. It wasn't the first time, either, that he had witnessed the vampire swinging at the air, as if he was trying to get rid of someone... who was not here. And the Original be damned... that is, more than he already was... if the new ring the vampire was wearing wasn't a magical one. Klaus had seen enough magical rings to recognize one when he saw one.

And this ring was not a daylight ring. Besides, Damon still wore his old daylight ring.

There obviously was something he was missing here.

“Who are you talking to?”

Damon continued to glare at the empty couch.

“Not your business.”

Klaus waited for a minute, and asked again. The answer was the same. So he asked once more one minute latter. Damon was still snapping at him. The Original squinted, far from willing to lose this battle of will.

Alaric watched for a time the two, but soon he couldn't bear it anymore, and burst out laughing.

“ _You sound like bickering children, you know that?”_

“Yes I do. Now shut up.”

Ric smirked, and went back to lying on the couch.

“ _Kids, these days...”_

Klaus was now staring at the couch intently, eyes squinted. Then a large, toothy smile spread on his face, and he turned to taunt Damon.

“You've got a ghost haunting you, and for some reason that new ring of yours makes it possible for you to see them! Who is it? One of your victims? I bet the one who gave you the ring is that grim reaper? Oh my, Damon! I thought she was your friend...”

“She is! And no, it's not one of my victims. It's someone... I care bout.”

The vampire had mumbled that last part, refusing to look at the Original. Ric's smirk, back there on the couch, grew a bit larger, but he said nothing. Klaus kept silent for a time, as he thought back to...

“Damn, it's your teacher, right? You are still head over heels for that guy! I believed you had gotten over him after he tried to kill you, but apparently you did not. You know, I didn't think you were that kind of guy... You seem too, ah, attached to the fairer sex.”

The Original had a malicious look on his face, and was definitely thinking this was all very funny. Damon, of course, was getting grumpy as the conversation didn't seem to die down.

“I'm still straight. Ric's an exception. If you really want to pinpoint my sexual orientation right now, you can say I'm alaricsexual. And he's not 'my' teacher.”

A chuckle came from the far-away couch, that only Damon heard.

“ _Whatever you say, sweetheart. And I'm sure 'alaricsexual' isn't an actual word, but I'm flattered. That aside, you know you can retaliate with Caroline, don't you? Wolfie still hasn't gotten her good favors, and he is still pinning after her, I believe. You, at least, have mines.”_

Caroline had gone with Elena and the others in search of the miraculous Cure, as Damon had stayed behind to take care of the peace negotiations... and of the charred remains of one Kol Mikaelson, because, really, it wasn't looking good, all that black in the kitchen.

No need to say, Klaus had been disappointed to hear that. He'd rather have had the blond girl to keep him company than Damon, who kept on going back to the possible terms of their possible truce even if it was obvious that the vampire didn't enjoy it more than Klaus did. Though Damon was almost as entertaining to tease as Caroline... Not in the same way, though.

The same was true, however, about teasing Klaus.

Damon decided he'd rather not spend the rest of the day being the Original Bastard's victim, ignored Alaric when the ghost pointed out he didn't have to spend the rest of the day with Klaus, and let go of the cleaning products he had been attacking the burnt traces with all day. The vampire stood up, rested his back against the kitchen island, and tilted his chin up so that he'd seem a bit haughty. Damon could do haughty very well, after all.

Klaus locked eyes with the vampire, waiting for a jab of some sort. He'd tolerate it for now. After all, it helped him not to get bored with his captivity.

“Behave, wolf-vamp. Vampire Barbie is a control-freak, and you definitely need practice.”

Klaus only squinted daggers at the vampire for the comment, which was an odd thing to do, but eitherway, while Damon suddenly grew toughtful, no doubt trying to imagine the Original Hybrid on a leash, happily trotting behind Caroline...

Damon gulped, unsure whether it was hillarious, or creepy. Maybe it was both.

“ _Now's the moment to change subject, I believe...”_

Alaric was finding all that very entertaining, to be frank, but he couldn't let it heard in his tone, or Damon would surely snap at him again...

As if he had heard him, Klaus focused on something else, that would soon lead them back to heir peace negotiations, but not yet. Something else, or someone else, more accurately. Someone who had taken off his arm, not long ago.

“You said this Ariane was a grim reaper? I met one, once, long ago... He had said they were only eleven... Count yourself lucky to have such a 'rare' friend, Damon.”

Unseen to Klaus, the ghost and the vampire shared a surprised look.

Hadn't Ariane said there were twelve of them?

 


	15. Falconcreek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in 4x15

_"You know, there's no point mulling over the possibility of a missing grim reaper when the only person who can answer our questions is not here.”_

Damon rolled his eyes, but stopped pacing.

“Thank you captain obvious, but the alternative is to mull over the fact that Jeremy's dead, Elena's heart-broken, and we still have a great deal of problems to take care of. So I'd rather wonder about what happened to the 'missing' grim reaper, especially now that I remember Ariane told me about him... He's dead. Problem is, how do you kill a grim reaper? And, speaking of which, who else than the grim reapers knows about that? Is there even a chance someone will try to murder my friend any time soon?”

Then he paused, and turned aound to look the ghost in the eyes.

The ghost who, by the bye, was currently sitting in the library of the boarding house, his eyes glued to an imaginary glass of bourbon. If imaginary bourbon had the same effect as true bourbon, it would have been great, in fact, because these days, Alaric felt nothing could go worse... Though he knew it could. It obviously could. Mystic Falls' supernatural occupants knew it could always get worse, because that was usually how it worked in the small city.

“No, because really, losing yet another friend is exactly what I need right now, and while the threat is almost non-existent, I'd rather be puzzled searching for an answer than brooding about what happened lately. There are too many people affected already, and someone in this city needs to get their head around the facts and prevent the situation from worsening, and the hell with it if I'm not the only one who seems to realize that!”

Seeing as Alaric was, in fact, at this very moment, getting himself depressed by staring at a glass of imaginary bourbon while remembering now and then that Jeremy was dead, the ghost didn't feel entitled to point out that Damon was surely not the only person in town who was still thinking clearly. Besides, he knew Damon, and the vampire wasn't going to allow himself to show his feelings about Jeremy's death just like that. Maybe later that night, when Damon brought out the alcohol, and when he drowned his annoyance at the world with him, but not for now. Not yet.

Damon would not mourn, or at least not show it, until he had nothing else to do. And if, as this day, the vampire had nothing to do, then he'd find something to busy himself with to postpone the moment of release.

So Damon prefered to wonder about the mystery of the dead grim reaper, for now.

“ _Ariane will soon be back with Carol Lockwood and my cousin, Damon. You'll ask her when she gets here. It shouldn't be long, now. What are the odds that she'll be attacked on the last twenty minutes of travelling from where they stayed to the boarding house? And even if she was attacked, there is little to no chance that it would be by that one person who possibly knows how to kill a grim reaper.”_

Then the front door of the boarding house was pushed open, and ghost and vampire heard the footsteps of someone coming to them, as well as the unmistakable accent of a formerly roman woman.

“I hope not! But unless that very attacker who knows how to fell me is hiding in your kitchen, Damon, I dare say I made it to you without damages.”

Ariane strode into the library, and let herself fall into the nearest armchair.

“Carol Lockwood has been delivered to her home without so much as a scratch, Magdalena Haguenhauer is growing fairly suspicious of what is going on in this charming little town, and Ariane who-won't-tell-you-her-real-name-because-it-sounds-way-too-odd-in-this-day-and-age has not been killed by a mysterious attacker. Mission accomplished. Now, what did I miss, and why are you discussing my possible murder?”

Damon grumbled a greeting, and Alaric looked up from his imaginary bourbon.

“ _Aside from convincing Klaus not to try and murder you and the mayor, everything went downhill these last days. The teens went to an island to get the Cure for vampirism, only to discover that it could be taken by only one person at a time, and Jeremy got murdered by his sister's evil doppelganger just before he reached the grand prize.”_

Ariane sighed, wondering once again why she was friend with Damon. At the speed tragedies occurred in Mystic Falls, maybe it wasn't so far-fetched to think she'd better watch her back...

Howsoever Damon and his personal ghost had ended up talking about the way to kill a grim reaper in the first place.

Damon thought it necessecary to add his sarcastic comment. Surely his way to cope with grief.

“And I'm sure there are one or two other things that happened at some point too, but I failed to register after the part about the expedition being a failure and Jeremy Gilbert dying.”

Ariane rose from her seat. She made to leave until she remembered she didn't actually have a place in town and was crashing at the boarding house. Then she stopped, and looked back at the two brooding vampires, one undead and the other dead-dead. Because no matter what Damon pretended, the vampire was brooding.

“I'll go and take a shower if you don't mind, and then we could speak about what prompted you to question my immortality? What do you think?”

Damon waved her away, and the grim reaper rushed upstairs. Whatever the two lovers would talk about now, it was not her right to eavesdrop.

Ariane gone, Ric looked away from his imaginary glass of imaginary alcohol, which returned to the true state of every imaginary thing: non existence. The ghost found Damon quiet, his back leaning against a wall, with anger in his eyes. Alaric went to him, and adopted a similar position, only keeping his hands in his pockets. It wasn't as if he could hug the vampire in his current not-so-imaginary ghostly state, so he figured it was better to keep the temptation to a minimum.

“ _See, the answer came to us. Now speak to me.”_

The vampire glared at him, and refused to answer, bitting his lips.

“ _Damon, there's no point in denying you cared. Jeremy's gone, and you can be an ass about it, as always, but you should speak to someone and be honest, even if only once. Even if only with me.”_

Damon scoffed derisively, his eyes searching his ghostly boyfriend's face in search of a heartbreak he was sure he wouldn't find. Alaric wasn't heartless, far from it. But he wasn't a normal person either. He was a Falkenbach, and dealing with death was something so natural to him, that he didn't really know what to do with his emotions when it struck someone close to him.

With Jeremy, it seemed to be bearable, but Damon had seen the hunter's reaction at the his agony by werewolf bite, a few months ago.

“Because you do so well with grieving!”

He didn't mean to underplay Ric's feelings about Jeremy's death. But he didn't think Alaric could help him cope. They were too different, if only on that point, for it to work. The ghost was cursed, and his emotional center was not complete. He lacked something to be humane, and speaking of grieving fell right into that category.

Damon witnessed the hurt on Ric's face being washed away by concern, once again, and he felt disgusted with himself. But he didn't know what else to say. Jeremy was dead, and it hurt. But beyond that? There wasn't much else to say, and truth to be told, it wasn't the first time someone the vampire cared about died.

“ _Damon, please...”_

But the vampire wouldn't give in, and it was only Ariane's return that broke the silence, a few minutes later.

The grim reaper was still in the process of getting her grey t-shirt into the right position when she passed by the library in search of her car key, which she had left... somewhere between the entrance and the armchair. The two got a nice sight of her stomach, efficiently distracting Damon from his brooding. The vampire was about to point it out with a smirk, when Ariane turned around, having not found her keys anywhere near the armchair.

“And I forgot my phone in the car. Great. If the Apocalypse happened while I was taking a shower and I couldn't react because I forgot to take it with me, I swear I'll...”

She was cut by a double gasp of surprise, and stopped on her tracks.

Turning around a bit, just enough to see the two's faces, Ariane frowned.

“Is something the matter?”

Damon was surprised, alright, but it was more Alaric who concerned her, as he looked... well, utterly shocked. Ariane followed their gazes, and her eyes fell on her t-shirt. It didn't take her long to figure out what was making them gawk like that. Her suspicions about Alaric Saltzman, as well as his cousin Magdalena Haguenhauer, were suddenly confirmed, and now she could say without hesitation that she knew why the two, ghost or alive, felt so vaguely familiar.

“ _This tattoo... It's an eight-pointed star, isn't it?”_

The ghost reached for his left shoulder, but she wasn't even sure he had noticed his own gesture.

The grim reaper sighed, and turned back for them to take a better look at the said tattoo in the small of her back. It was, indeed, an eight-pointed star, made of four thin, turquoise lines, just the same color as the tattoos under her eyes. Just the same figure as the scar she knew Alaric to have on the back of his left shoulder.

It wasn't really a tattoo, as the marks under her eyes weren't either. All the grim reapers had these, the star, and the marks under the eyes. Ariane wasn't sure how, or why, but it had been another result of the ritual that had made them what they were. And for those who knew about the grim reapers, it was a way to tell them apart from the mortals immediately.

“We were going to speak of the one person who ever managed to kill one of my kind, weren't we? Well, it is all related. Sit down.”

The ghost and the vampire did as they were told, still to stunned to act otherwise. Ariane put her t-shirt right, and went to the armchair she had used not so long before. There she sat down, and there she waited for the questions.

She didn't have to wait long.

“Do you know the means to kill your kind, and is there any risk of it happening again?”

The grim reaper looked at Damon, noticing with interest that he was avoiding the topic of the tattoo for now, as if he wasn't sure how to ask about it.

“Of course, it may happen again. There is always a way, always a loophole to immortality. But the one man who ever killed a grim reaper is long dead, and he did not leave instructions behind. As far as I know, no one knows, today, how he managed that particular feat.”

This time, it was the ghost who spoke. His voice was carefully controlled.

“ _He was... human?”_

Ariane laughed a bit, at the irony of being asked this question by this person.

“Oh yes, he was. It happened in the seventh century, in a town that would be situated in Germany today, if it hadn't been... almost wiped out with that event. A true scene of slaughter, the few who survived left the place afterwards. Witches particularly hate the place, even today.”

The grim reaper fixed her eyes on the ghost's, making sure to speak her next sentence with intent.

“The grim reaper's murder happened in a place named Falconcreek.”

Alaric paled visibly as he realized what it meant.

“ _Falkenbach in German.”_

Next to him, Damon blinked once or twice. The vampire looked at the two people who shared a similar figure on their bodies, one as a turquoise tattoo, the other as a ritual scar that acted as a seal upon his imcomplete emotional center. Finally it sank in.

Damon had to refrain himself from trying and putting his hand on Ric's shoulder. He still couldn't touch the ghost, after all.

“You mean, this man who killed one of yours, it's possible that he was... Alaric's ancestor?”

Ariane nodded, her face grave, as she remembered the trip she had gone onto as soon as she had heard the news. Herself, and the ten other remaining grim reapers, had arrived at Falconcreek a few months after the actual events, but they had found the man, and they had heard the story.

And they had seen the consequences of Ascagne's killing.

“The Falkenbachs were the descendants of the only man to have ever killed a grim reaper. As such, they became the greatest human killers to have walked this Earth. Their curse is that even though they are human, they share Ascagne's blood.”

Ariane gestured at Alaric.

“And you, Alaric Saltzman, are of this same blood. Welcome to the family.”

And someone cursed loudly on the other side of the nearest window. A window, that was open.

 


	16. Snitch

One moment, Damon was sitting on the couch.

The next, he wasn't.

The vampire had blurred to the window, and grabbed whoever it was who was listening in. Not even taking the time to register the bright red hair in his hand, Damon pulled the intruder's head by the window sill, tackling it against the wall, in a up-is-down manner. The vampire smelled the scent of blood, but he could tell it wasn't much, only a few drops. He hadn't bashed the intruder's head against the wall that hard...

“I don't care who you are, I don't care for who you're doing it, but no one eavesdrops on my private conversations! Tell me, how should I kill you for spying on me in my own house?”

Ric tried to get Damon to calm down, and maybe to ask questions before actually killing people, but a “click” beat him to it.

Damon found himself starring at a M1911 pointed under his jaw, though he had no idea how exactly the intruder could tell where his jaw was, given the red head's position. Not that the gun would do real and permanent damage, but still, the vampire'd rather not have a bullet in his brain if he could help it. And there was still the risk that this particular gun had been loaded with wooden bullets.

Which, given the town they lived in, and the fact that the intruder had been spying on his boarding house, home to two vampires, was more than probable.

And again, even if a wooden bullet would not kill him either, unless it was shot in his heart, Damon'd rather not get shot with a wooden bullet for all that. Wooden bullets were just freaking painful, you see?

And they were a pain in the ass to get out, so if he got one in his brain... Yuck.

“Thanks for asking, Damon, but you weren't answering when I knocked at the door. I was merely trying to get to you... another way.”

Recognizing the drawling voice at once, the vampire let go of the red-headed woman, surprise clearly written on his face. Magdalena winced, and turned her head right and left, her neck being a bit painful after all that rough handling.

“ _Damon, move over here. Mag might just shoot you if you stay too close to her after... Well, after you bashed her head against a wall.”_

The vampire rolled his eyes, but did just as he had been told to.

“Yeah, right. You Falkenbachs are a bunch of barbarians, anyway.”

The ghost smirked, amused.

“ _Like you're any better, love.”_

Then Damon looked back at the young woman on the other side of the window.

Magdalena had both her elbows on the window sill, her chin leaning on her closed fists, and was eyeing him warily. Her M1991 was nowhere in sight; then again, the vampire had never seen her with it during the last weeks, but now that he knew she had one, he wouldn't be surprised to learn she never went out without it. The right side of her red hair was soaked in blood, but she only had a small gash on her forehead. Head wounds bled a lot.

Ignoring the fact that Magdalena was pouring blood on the window frame, because it might have been, slightly, just a little bit, kind of his fault, Damon handed her a handkerchief.

“Long time no see, Magdalena. How are you doing?”

The lawyer responded in kind, wiping some blood away, before pressuring on the gash with the tissue as if it was totally normal for them to exchange civilities after a death threat.

“I ran into a wall earlier today. That aside, I'm pleased to see you too, Damon. And for your information, if I am to be murdered, I'd rather it be quick, and not too bloody. A twisted neck sounds good.”

Though it was possible that it was, actually, normal to her. Alaric wouldn't be the one to say the contrary, as the both of them shared many memories of sweet family time... and of Saltzman training-of-hell time. God knew him and Theodoric had been only this close to greet each other that way too: murder attempt, then civilities.

Damon sent her a dazzling smile, while Ric's ghost wondered, once again, why he hadn't just gone to the afterlife. Even Hell had to be less crazy than this.

“Good to know, and you are lucky, twisting necks is my speciality. Anything else you wanted to tell me, as you went out of your way to get to my house?”

Magdalena's eyes jumped over to Ariane, who was politely watching the conversation. The woman didn't seem very disturbed by all this either. Then again, if what the lawyer had heard as she had made her way to the window, hoping to see someone in the boarding house, was true, it wouldn't be surprising that to Ariane too, this situation was pretty normal.

“Actually, I'm here for you. Guess what I found buzzing in my suitcase?”

And the red head brandished the grim reaper's cell phone, a thin grin creeping on her forcedly-stern facial expression.

Ariana blinked, and took the cell phone, wondering out loud how it had ended up in her friend's suitcase of all places. Magdalena took the opportunity to point out that the caller's ID had been “Devil-in-disguise”, with a pointed look at the phone. Ariane swore, and scowled at the phone, which she quickly put on silent mode. No one managed to get more from her, as she simply went to sit in an armchair, her features dark, and her glare unwelcoming.

Mag shrugged and turned back to Damon.

“You know, I couldn't help but hear...”

Ric facepalmed, and declared he was done with all sorts of secrets and lies, before flopping down on the couch, his eyes fixed on the ceiling decidedly.

“...a part of your conversation. Is my cousin back in town?”

Damon tried to catch Alaric's or Ariane's attention, but both were ignoring his attempts. So the vampire decided to simply be cautious, and answer Magdalena's inquiry with another question.

And if the ghost or the grim reaper weren't happy with what would come out of his choice, whatever it would be, then they'd just have to suck it up. Let's not be said that he hadn't tried to give them a say in the matter.

“How much of our conversation did you hear, exactly?”

“From the 'The Falkenbach were the descendants of the only man to have ever killed a grim reaper' part. By the way, who's Ascagne?”

Ariane grumbled, from her glaring contest with the wall on the other side of the room.

“Seven centuries old, fell in love, saw her die, went ballistic, became a psychopathic killer.”

From the couch, Ric mumbled as he glanced at Damon, who totally ignored him.

“ _Well that rings a bell...”_

The vampire had all his attention on the lawyer, mostly because he did not want to think about Katherine, and because he wasn't keen on explaining to the red head what her cousin meant by that. Good thing she couldn't hear Ric. How would he do that, anyway? “Hey, I've murdered a few hundreds of people in the last century and a half”? No, certainly not.

So Damon scrunched up his nose, and muttered that of course, she couldn't have helped it, it wasn't as if the lawyer had been listening for a good thirty seconds before she cursed loudly, and go their attention.

Magdalena gave him a scathing look, well aware of what the dark-haired man was currently thinking. The conversation may have been private, but it was her ancestors that Ariane and Damon, and possibly Alaric, though she had yet to see him, had been talking about. She felt she had a right to know. And so, a right to listen.

“Speaking of which, on top of Ric's location, I also wanted to ask what it was all about, grim reapers and curses included.”

Damon tried one last time to get the two others' opinions, but they were still ignoring him. So, caution be damned, and possibly thrown to the wind too, he was going to tell her. The Falkenbach had been growing suspicious of Mystic Falls in the whole for some time already, it wasn't as if she wasn't going to find out at some point. Hell, it was even a wonder she still didn't know about the supernatural while living here! She herself was a cursed woman, and the supernatural population of the city kept going up these days... And down, too, because supernatural beings tended to end up dead pretty quickly in Mystic Falls, but it wasn't the point.

“Alaric is just here, sulking on the couch, if you want to know.”

Mag blinked, and then narrowed her eyes at said couch, which was very obviously devoid of all living presence. What was Damon trying to achieve here, exactly?

“Oh, and Ariane's a grim reaper, I'm a vampire, Ric's a ghost, reason why you can't see him... And you are a cursed woman.”

The lawyer thought about telling Damon off for his antics, but Ariane had finally decided to come out of her glaring-at-a-wall session. The grim reaper tossed her cell phone at the vampire, who caught it without even trying.

“Great, now she knows. Anything else you want to tattle about, snitch?”

Damon sneered at the grim reaper, before walking over to the window.

“I didn't hear you giving her the shadow of an explanation, true or false for the matter.”

Ariane just stood up, and made her way to the room she had been free-loading in. A fact that Damon liked to rub in her face, from time to time. Mosty, when he felt like being an ass.

“I'm not the one introducing her to our wonderful world, just so you know. You told her, it's your job. Now, I have to go and mull over the imbecility of in-laws, so if you'd let me...”

Damon didn't bother trying to find out what his friend meant by that, though he had an inkling it had to do with “Devil-in-disguise”.

Magdalena stared in bewilderment as the dark-haired man, sorry, vampire, she'd have to get her head around that, bit his own wrist. His face had changed slightly, dark veins appearing around his eyes, and the scleras turning red, while his canines sharpened, becoming fangs. The lawyer blinked when he offered her the wrist, where the new wound was already fading.

“Drink. It'll heal your gash.”

Mag stared dumbly at him, trying to see if he was joking or not. The now-very-obviously-vampiric man rolled his eyes, and pushed his wrist against her mouth, so that she only had to open her mouth.

“Drink. You won't turn into a vampirejust like that, if that's what you're worried about. And yes, I owe you that, at least, because I'm the reason you are wounded.”

Still unsure that he wasn't playing with her, Magdalena gulped down some blood tentatively. It could do no harm, even if it didn't work, could it? And it wasn't as if she had ever been bothered by the taste of blood. She was a Saltzman by her mother, after all.

A moment passed, and slowly the pain from her head wound disappeared. When she couldn't feel anything anymore, Mag took off the handkerchief, and touched the place where she had been injured, and found nothing, except a bit of dried blood.

Her eyes went back to Damon, wide open, and she stammered a bit when she spoke.

“You weren't kidding.”

“Of course I wasn't. Sit down, and start with the questions about the supernatural. I'm not letting you out of this house until you know enough not to get in trouble with any of the monsters that live around Mystic Falls, because believe me, they are numerous.”

Then the vampire shot a glance at his sulking lover, and added:

“And because if I did, your cousin would nag at me for all eternity. Ghosts never shut up, you see?”

“ _As if you'd want me to shut up and ignore you until world's end.”_

“Ric got a point. Don't ask, he's just being an ass. Anyway. What do we start with?”

Magdalena's eyes flittered to the still-very-empty couch, wondering how exactly Damon could tell that Alaric was there and not somewhere else, how the vampire could hear him if he was a ghost, and why Ric was he a ghost in the first place?, but she felt it would be better to start with the simple stuff, or else she would get lost. The supernatural seemed to be rather... labyrinthine.

“So... Vampires, ghosts, grim reapers and cursed people exist?”

“As well as werewolves, witches, hybrids, and doppelgangers. And I'm sure I don't know everything yet, I mean, I'm only one hundred and seventy-two years old!”

Mag blinked, still processing.

“What are hybrids?”

“Ah, these guys! Werewolves and vampires at the same time. But Ric is better: he's a ghost, a cursed man, and an enhanced Original vampire at the same time. His serial killer days were fun...”

“ _Oh joy...”_

 


	17. They lived

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only want to point out: no Delena ---> no sire bond ---> no forced switching off the emotions ---> no burning the Gilbert house ---> no new hairdo for Elena!  
> If only for the last two, I'm happy that I wrote this fanfiction. ( not only, of course, but still )

"So, any question?"

Damon couldn't help but feel smug as he asked that. The look on Magdalena's face was enough to say that yes, the woman had questions, but that no, she would not be asking them right away. She was most likely disturbed by her accelerated all-the-supernatural-in-two-hours lessons.

Mag didn't answer, anyway. She simply stood up, and swayed a bit towards the exit, feeling light-headed all of a sudden. She might have been from the Saltzman family, but there still was a limit to how much weirdness she could bear in a day.

Her limit was well passed, this time.

As she finally found the front door of the boarding house, she heard the vampire's teasing voice.

"And don't get lost on the way back! The Big Bad Wolf eats the Little Red Riding Hood in the original story, like, definitely, don't forget!"

Magdalena would have been slightly miffed at the coment, had she not understood what Damon was implying by that. Though it was unlikely for Klaus Mikaelson to go after her for a reason or another, Mag couldn't hold her own against that kind of opponent. An Original hybrid, nothing less! Living in the same town as herself, for so long!

And how had she missed the whole there-truly-are-monsters-in-the-shadows part, all her life?

What the red head didn't hear was Alaric's scolding at Damon's teasing, since her cousin was somewhat ghostly. Eventually said ghost sighed.

" _You're impossible, Damon."_

"Of course I am. I'm pretty sure you said that a good hundred of times since we know each other."

The vampire offered his boyfriend a perfect smile, though it might have been more of a blinding smirk, however Damon managed to do that. Ric threw an imaginary pen at his lover, which the vampire evaded easily. After all, it was an imaginary pen.

"And you can't deny your cousin got the 'Red' part of the 'Little Red Riding Hood' right. She's a red head, after all. Flaming, red head."

Before the ghost could say anything, and believe him, he had something poisonous ready just for the vampire on the tip of his immaterial tongue at any moment, the front door to the boarding house opened again. The undead and the dead looked back at the entrance, and saw Stefan and Elena there, both frowning at the outside.

"Was that...?"

"Yeah..."

"She seemed..."

"Shaken, I'd say..."

"And she looked at us funny, didn't she?"

Damon raised an eyebrow at the shared speech. It was a bit sickening, truth to be told. In his opinion, only twins had the right to do that. God forbid, if he and Ric had ever done that, he'd have cut off both their tongues. Or, maybe only his, considering the teacher's tongue wouldn't have grown back, as he was human... Supposing a vampire's cut-off body part grew back. Damon had yet to test that, and, oddly enough, he wasn't eager to if he couldn't test that on someone else first. Just in case, you know, it didn't grow back.

"Lovebirds, over here! Hello, Earth to Stelena?"

Stefan, Elena and Alaric stared at the vampire funnily, but he ignored their reaction. Damon gestured for the couple to come closer, and eventually they did, though they seemed wary of him.

They had reasons to be, of course.

Stefan hadn't forgotten how his brother had lately been talking to himself, as if Ric had been present. Furthermore, he hadn't forgotten that Damon's lover and anchor to sanity had died not so long ago. While the older vampire wasn't completely gone, because he still had his family and his friends to rely on, Damon hadn't been really stable lately. His sarcasm had become worse than ever, and he hovered from one mood to another. Not that many victims, yet, but he still had killed one or two people lately.

As for Elena, the girl had been busy trying to adjust to her new condition as a vampire, and now getting over her brother's death, but she had seen the devastating effects of Ric's death on Damon nonetheless. She was his friend, after all, and that even though Damon would claim she wasn't more than his annoying little sister of sorts. She knew how to read the suffering in him, almost as well as Stefan did.

Sometimes the young vampire felt guilty for having asked Stefan to save Matt first, thus causing her own death, and the hunter's. She knew it was the best it could have gone, anyway, but she still felt slightly guilty for Damon's loss. It wasn't as if the hunter, the Darkness Alaric had become, would have become cuddly with his former lover again if she hadn't died, and everyone knew that. And Matt was alive; it was important, too. Ric would have liked this outcome rather than living at the cost of Matt's life and of all the vampires' on Earth, Damon, Stefan and Caroline included.

Elena knew all that. But she couldn't help but feel guilty, when she looked at Damon, and saw that strange, agonizing glint in his eyes. And she couldn't help but feel sad, suffocated even, when she turned around to ask Alaric what he wanted for dinner, only to realize he wasn't here anymore.

She had lost too many people, these last three years. First, her parents, then Jenna, then Ric, and now Jeremy! And there was no one to blame for all these deaths, because no one had asked for her parents' accident to happen, and she hadn't asked to be a Petrova doppelganger either.

But she had to live on, as long as she could, and not like Katherine, who had only been a parasite, all her life. And Damon needed to do that, too. The problem was, the older vampire tended to go by worse, and all the way to the worst, before getting better. The body count since Alaric's death was suspiciously low, and Elena as well as Stefan were waiting for the moment when Damon would simply explode.

Of course, they didn't know about Ariane's nexus ring. So the couple walked slowly, as one approaches a supposedly tamed beast, supposedly being the key word here. So Damon watched them, barely refraining from rolling his eyes at their caution.

The boarding house's resident ghost snorted in the awkward silence.

" _Stelena, really? And what does that make us? Dalaric?"_

Damon's eyes darted to his lover, surprising his brother and Elena. He almost retorted something, he even opened his mouth to talk, but he remembered their presence. And even if it was a bit selfish of him, especially after Jeremy's death, he didn't want to share the secret of his seing Alaric before a few months, maybe. It was his private, secret garden, in a way.

So, instead of saying what he had been about to say, he paused, and looked back at the couple.

He still had another thing to tell them, after all.

"I suppose you were talking about Ric's cousin?"

Stefan nodded, his gaze wandering back to the front door, which was now closed, and from which Magdalena had surely gotten away for quite some time already.

"Exactly. She seemed... weird. Like she had eaten something bad. And she looked at us strangely, as if she was seeing us for the first time, you know?"

Damon's smile grew larger, and Elena narrowed her eyes at him.

"You didn't compel her, did you?"

The older vampire faked shock at the inquiry. Compelling people was so not something he'd do, right? And what could he have gotten from Magdalena Haguenhauer, anyway? Beside the promise of a clean murder, or maybe some mind-blowing sex, considering she was Ric's cousin, but anyway.

"I'm so hurt you'd think something like that from me, of all people, Elena!"

The girl gave him a pointed look, and Damon threw his hands in the air, as if in defeat.

"No, seriously, I didn't compel her to murder the first hybrid she meets, though it could have been an idea... Kidding. But she might have overheard a conversation between Ariane and me, and I might have just told her the whole truth about her curse."

"Just her curse?"

"You're completely paranoid, Stefan. And yes, I might have also told her everything about us. You know, vampires, werewolves, hybrids, witches, grim reapers, and blablabla."

Anticipating his younger brother's reaction to that avowal, Damon ducked a glare and grabbed a cushion, which he put right before his face. As everybody knew, the cushions in the Salvatores' boarding house were Stefan-proof.

"Why did you do that?! What happened to secrecy, and all that?"

Damon's voice came out a bit muffled. The instructions for the Stefan-proof cushions were clear: the closer to the face of the assaulted one, the better a shield they were.

"I didn't really have a choice; it was telling her, or compelling her. And even if she didn't know it that way, Mag is a cursed woman. She's been deep in the supernatural since the moment she was born. And she currently lives in Mystic Falls, so it's not like she could remain oblivious to it all much longer."

Stefan sighed, and let himself fall in an armchair, soon joined by Elena. The younger Salvatore had offered her to stay at the boarding house for a time, now that the Gilbert house was void of any living presence.

"I guess it had to happen at some point..."

The three vampires spent a quiet afternoon, together, while Alaric watched over them with a small smile. From time to time, Damon would glance at him, and they'd share a calm tranquility with only their eyes. If Stefan and Elena noticed the older vampire's behavior, they didn't comment on it.

They spoke of what was happening lately, in Mystic Falls. Damon, outside of what he had been directly involved in, had not kept up with the latest "news", too busy brooding, amongst other things. Jeremy's death had been hard, because he had gotten... attached to the boy, but Damon hadn't cared about how the others had been affected. Elena told him about Bonnie's reaction, and though the older vampire tried to act unaffected, it didn't work very well. Caroline and Klaus were still dancing around each other, as it was, and Elijah had disappeared God knew where. Rebekah was still pestering Matt, who didn't seem to mind the attention all that much. Carol Lockwood was doing her best to calm her son, with the goal of not getting herself or him murdered by Klaus, once again. Liz Forbes and Bonnie's father, recently back into the game, and not for the witch's pleasure, were keeping watch over strange events, just in case Silas had really decided to come in town and create chaos, as Kol had claimed he would do before his demise.

Things weren't quiet in Mystic Falls, that was for sure. Then again, when were they quiet?

This evening, just this evening, the three vampires and the ghost pretended, not that all was right with the world, but that they weren't the first concerned.

When the afternoon came to an end, Damon and Stefan started cooking dinner, together. None of them needed to eat, but they needed to pretend they weren't completely different from the humans they had once been. They wanted one evening that went like it did for every other, normal person.

Even if they had a bottle of blood on the table, and one more glass each.

Elena took some time to herself, without anyone to fuel her anger after her brother's death. She did her best not to think about the impending doom that seemed to be her life, not to think about her hatred for Katherine, not to think about the pain that clutched at her heart, and that Stefan barely managed to soothe.

Alaric watched, as always, and he was happy. Despite everything, and in spite of his bitterness at not really being with them, the three vampires were managing. Damon didn't look at him for all the time he cooked, and that was great; it meant he lived not only in the past, but in the present as well. Stefan had come to term with his feeding issues, and was happy with Elena. Elena, though she was in pain, managed to get out of bed every morning, and she hadn't switched off her emotions, as she had threatened to do a few days before.

Alaric didn't really belong with the livings, or the undeads, and though it hurt to see them smile without him, it also made him happy. At least, they lived.

Later, Damon and Ric were alone in the vampire's room. Damon was frowning at the ghost.

"Why should you be the one most obvious in our couple name?"

" _Sorry?"_

"'Dalaric.'"

" _Oh. Well, unless you fancy 'Alamon', I'm keeping 'Dalaric'. And that way, you're first in our couple name, so don't complain."_

Damon seemed to think for a moment. Then, he shrugged.

"Not wrong."


	18. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4x22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, but I was taking a break from writing ( more commonly called writer block, on another story )

Alaric was keeping an eye on his cousin when it happened.

Magdalena turned around, and saw him. There was no question as to why she had frozen on the spot, staring at him as if he shouldn't be there, because he wasn't supposed to be there and visible. Ric felt it, too. It wasn't the same anymore.

He was present again. Not only a presence, but here. If he reached out to his cousin, and tried to touch her, he just knew he could feel her skin under his fingers. If he spoke, everyone would hear him. If Elizabeth Forbes, who was currently speaking with one of her deputies on the phone, looked in his direction, she would see him. Just as Magdalena did right now.

Mag tried to speak, but only a strangled sound passed her lips. The noise of the tempest outside covered that sound, and the sheriff didn't think of turning around, as she hadn't heard it.

A knot untied itself in Alaric's throat, and the ghost laughed nervously, but quietly.

“ _The Veil has been dropped...”_

Bonnie had done it. The ghost wasn't sure why she had done it, but she had managed to do it... And it meant... It meant that all the vengeful spirits around Mystic Falls could wreck havoc however they wanted. It also meant that Silas had gotten what he wanted, or part of it at least.

Alaric gritted his teeth, as he came to a decision.

Gesturing for Magdalena to follow him, he found a discreet place where no one would notice that Alaric Saltzman was back in town, or worse, where no deputies would notice that a dead vampire was walking around again. He couldn't afford to be stopped now. Not right away, if anything.

The read head followed her deceased cousin without hesitation, but as soon as they were out of sight, she allowed herself to freak out.

“What the hell is going on here?!? I thought you were dead!”

Ric hissed an answer between his teeth.

“ _Of course I am. Eight times, if you want to be precise. I am a ghost, remember!”_

Residual anger crept up his spin, and before he knew it, the veins under his eyes had gone black, while his sclerae turned to red without his consent. Magdalena took a step back, not exactly scared by the vampire before her, but pretty shaken to see it happen to her cousin of all people. Alaric felt the change, and witnessed her reaction, so he forced himself to take a deep breath. His vampire features went back to their human state.

“ _Right. Sorry for that. Now listen carefully: the Veil that stopped the dead on the Other Side to interact with the living fell down just a few minutes ago, that's why you can see me. And it's very bad news. I want you to speak with the sheriff, and the two of you to coordinate the sheriff department's actions. You will have a lot of dead supernatural beings in town, and not all of them will be kind. If one acts, kill them, and take the body to the clearing out of town, a few kilometers from the road. Liz will know. Someone will have to stay there, tie them up, and kill them again, and again, and again, because ghosts can't die.”_

Mag blinked as she processed what he had just told her, but soon enough she was nodding. Killing dead people. Sure. No problem. She could do that.

“I'll take the first shift, then. Do you know how long it will take to have things back in order?”

Alaric's expression fell a bit, as he realized he would soon be back into ghostland, but he didn't let it affect him.

“ _Not too long, I hope. That's why I can't take care of it myself: I have to see how to put the Veil back into place with the others.”_

Magdalena understood that, but just as she was going to speak, the door of the empty room opened, revealing the sheriff. Liz Forbes' eyes zeroed on Alaric, and she almost choked out of surprise. Mag prevented that by patting her on the back and closing the door again behind the sheriff.

Ric gave the both of them an apologetic smile.

“ _I trust you to do what needs to be done, Mag. And remember, no hesitation.”_

He headed for the door, but turned one last time to look at the sheriff.

“ _About what happened...”_

Elizabeth managed a smile, and waved him off. She hoped she was doing the right thing by letting him go, but she was being realistic; not only was the history teacher a ghost, and so impossible to kill, but he was an enhanced Original vampire. He could kill her in a single move if he wanted, and unless she soaked him with a full basket of vervain, there was no point in even trying to stop him. Even the sunlight was absent that day, courtesy of the supernatural storm above their heads.

“Damon explained what happened. It wasn't really you.”

“ _Sort of, I guess, but I am still sorry.”_

The ghost left the two women together, knowing he couldn't have found two human more qualified for the job if he had had the time to search. He only hoped they would suffice, given the enormity of the task he had just given them.

He and the others needed to focus on the Silas problem, they didn't have much of a choice...

As he left the hospital, he crossed path with two nurses hurrying from an ambulance that had just arrived. A teenager had apparently been unlucky, and a tree, weakened by the storm, and fallen right upon his leg. The boy looked at him through the mist of pain.

“Mr Saltzman...? You're back in town...”

The ghost stopped, eyes fixed on the blood he could see, and smell, dripping off the boy's leg. Strangely, he wasn't feeling the thirst and the need to feed, but he guessed it was because he was still a ghost, even if he was corporeal.

“ _Yeah, Samuel, I'm back.”_

Ric frowned, wondering what exactly it meant about his abilities right now, as both a ghost and a vampire. He knew he couldn't teleport anymore, surely because he was corporeal as long as the Veil stayed down, or else he'd already be where Damon was. He could feel the unnatural strength his vampiric nature gave him, and he had a feeling he still had the superhuman speed, but the rest...

An idea came to him, and he grabbed the arm of the nearest nurse. The woman turned to look at him, about to lash out if needed, but he didn't let her go so far. Her eyes fell right into his, and she relaxed.

“ _You won't remember what I'm about to do. In fact, you haven't seen me at all.”_

The nurse repeated his orders with a dull tone, and Alaric knew he had successfully compelled her. That, at least, was still possible.

The other nurse looked up from her patient, to call her colleague for help, but she only stared into the ghost's eyes. He told her the very same thing, before turning to the teenager who was looking at him with big eyes. In an instant, Alaric compelled him too. Only then did he bite his left wrist and forced a bit of blood down the boy's throat.

The effects were quick. Ric held Samuel's leg into the right position, forcing the bones back in place, while his bood healed the other damages. The teenager strangled a scream, as he had been ordered to, for it hurt a lot, but before long he wasn't feeling as bad anymore. Completely dumbfounded, the boy stood up, and tried to walk.

He couldn't refrain a small cry when he leaned onto his formerly-broken leg.

“ _Careful, Samuel. Your leg is still weak, so you'd rather not force on it like that. Go inside, and stay there until the storm ends, alright?”_

“I won't go out until the end of the storm.”

Alaric winced at the dull tone, no less convinced compulsion wasn't the right way to do it, but he ignored the slightly guilty feeling in his chest.

The ghost turned to look at the street, and smiled grimly.

“ _So the compulsion works, and my blood is efficient, eh? I guess I have all my vampiric powers, and weaknesses too. The only ghostly point being, I can't be killed definitely...”_

Not that it changed anything, considering he wasn't a regular vampire, and the ways to kill him definitely were surely scarce and difficult to find. But at least, he still didn't need to feed... That was a plus.

And he left the hospital in a blur. Two nurses and a teenager were wondering what exactly had happened during the last minutes, but they would not find an answer anytime soon.

Of course, things didn't go so simply, even after he left the hospital.

As running at high speed could easily become disconcerting, especially for a vampire like him, who hadn't had much time to get used to it, Ric stopped here and there, to get a clearer look at his current location. He knew Damon and the others had left for the high school, and it almost made him laugh, how everything seemed to remind him of his life, even the place where Bonnie was doing her witchy things. It wouldn't take him long to get to the school, but even with vampire speed, it'd take a few minutes.

About halfway there, the ghost stopped at a crossroad...

And three ghosts were there, almost snarling at him. The teacher rolled his eyes, recognizing them to be some of the vampires he had slain since he had taken the mantle of vampire hunter, arriving in Mystic Falls. Sure, they were dead, so he couldn't ask if they had a death wish, but still... They had to know he could take them on easily, right?

“ _You are not getting away, hunter!!!”_

Maybe they were a bit slow on the uptake. Maybe they hadn't been around when his alter-ego had gotten himself, meaning, him too, transformed into a super vampire. Maybe they simply didn't care.

“ _Do we really have to do this?”_

A female vampire sneered at him, and the two others followed her lead.

“ _Oh yes, we have to! None of us appreciated being staked, you know, and we will make you regret it.”_

Ric muttered under his breath.

“ _Believe me, I already do...”_

One of the ghosts blurred to him, fist ready for impact, but the enhanced Original simply took a step back. Then he punched the attacker so hard the guy's head almost flew off his neck. What was certain, was that his neck broke, but since a broken neck didn't take that much time to get back into place, the hunter decided to do more.

In the blink of an eye, Ric was right before the still-flying / not-completely-fallen-yet body, one hand on the head, the other on the ghost's neck. He twisted hard, and the head fell on the ground... but not in the same place as the rest of the body.

The ghost of the hunter rubbed his hands, a pleased smile on his lips. One ghost out of three, now out for some time.

...Even if Alaric had no idea how much time it actually was. No ghost-friendly manual in sight.

If he was lucky, it could be for a few hours. After all, getting one's head back had to be longer than simply undoing a twisted, but still attached, neck.

Then he turned to look at the two others ghosts, who didn't disappoint him in the least. Not a second later, the two of them were at his throat...

Or tried to be at his throat.

Ric swept their legs off the ground with a sigh. They fell hard, head against the ground, and the female one bled a bit from the head, even if it healed right away. They were still conscious, though.

He ripped out the male's heart, and pressed a foot against the female's throat.

“ _How the freaking hell did you...”_

She couldn't finish her sentence, the pressure on her windpipe getting stronger the moment she began to speak. Alaric smiled, but it looked more like a grimace, truth to be told.

“ _News update, sweetie, only supernatural beings go to the Other Side after their death. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't been a vampire when I died. Moreover, I was already a cursed man, with the best killing instincts on the market, before that, and I was turned by the Original witch, who made me even stronger than the other Originals. You are waaaay out of your league, going after me...”_

He drawled that last part, feeling the anger he had kept at bay during his time as a ghost about to break out. Now that he could actually interact with the world, the hunter didn't feel like keeping it in anymore.

“ _Besides, I'm pissed off right now.”_

And he crushed her neck savagely.

Ric watched the bodies with contempt for a time, but finally decided he'd better call Magdalena. If he was lucky, the sheriff department could come and collect the bodies before the ghosts came back to themselves. He wasn't fancying having to deal with them, again.

“ _So, back to business. I'm pretty sure Damon needs someone to save his ass, right now...”_

 


	19. It had actually happened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, but I'm kind of... Off-schedule, I guess? for the holidays. Especially since I'm working for all of July and August, 4 days a week. It's my first summer job, and well... Anyway. It doesn't ean I won't post, only, I'm literally not following any kind of schedule until september, for all of my fics.

Damon winced as he pulled himself back up. He wasn't sure why it had happened, but the dull feeling in his gut, the way everything was still a bit fuzzy around him, and, most obviously, the fact that he was currently sprawled out in a corridor of the local high school, instead of being, oh, you know, chasing the oldest monster around... All those facts made it pretty clear that indeed, it had happened.

No matter how ridiculous it sounded, it had actually happened.

The vampire winced painfully, as he struggled to, at least, sit up. Not that he didn't like the cold feeling of the floor against his left cheek, of course. He just had more important things to do.

Such as keeping Elena from getting murdered by Katherine, or worse, by Silas.

Damon kind of liked Elena, after all. She was like that annoying little sister, who is sometimes annoying, but well, figures, it's in the job description, and that he just couldn't manage not to care about. Moreover, Stefan was finally becoming less uptight... Would the word be “uploose”, then? No, certainly not. Where was his mind going, again?

Right. Vervain shot. He wasn't losing it... Loosing it... Argh! Only the after effects of being shot full of vervain by Elena, surely.

Because, yes, that was it, the right train of thought, just here, he could do it! So, because what had happened previously, leading to him being sprawled out on the floor like that, was that Elena's anger at Katherine had finally gotten the best out of her, and the young vampire had recklessly concluded she'd go and beat the older doppelganger to a pulp. And to do that, Elena had shot Damon full of vervain, forgetting that they were here to deal with Silas before anything else.

Under normal circumstances, Damon would be all for beating Katherine to a pulp, he had to admit. But the Immortal going around and killing people was enough of a problem for now. And Katherine was like, five times stronger than Elena in sheer strenght, and much more experienced. And did he say he didn't appreciate to be vervained, again?

It hurt, damn it!

The vampire took a deep breath, feeling more an more clear-headed. Good, it was all coming back to him. The vervain was loosing its effects. Great. Soon, he'd be able to stand up.

Damon tried to stand up. The world waltzed around him.

Right. Soon, not now. Soon wasn't yet. Soon was soon. So he'd just... stay here, sitting on the floor, for now. Breathing in, breathing out... Hoping Elena wouldn't get herself killed while he regained his bearings... Hoping no one, except Silas and perhaps Katherine, would get killed in the meantime because he needed a few more seconds of rest.

He didn't blame Elena, truly, though he was a bit angry at her nonetheless. The girl had barely reigned in her urge to turn off her humanity, after Jeremy's death, and with all the other things her doppelganger had done previously... It wasn't exactly surprising that Elena had snapped.

Damon would just have liked it better if she hadn't snapped this very day, and say, tomorrow instead?

Just as he was having these thoughts, the vampire's hearing picked up something coming towards him. Damon froze, and kept himself from breathing, something he could actually do if he focused hard enough, but that was still very uncomfortable. He didn't want to alert whoever was coming to his presence, especially since he couldn't really defend himself in this state. Hell, he couldn't even stand on his own feet, so defending himself? Fighting? Not gonna happen.

Footsteps.

Those were footsteps. And the person to whom these footsteps belonged was definitely coming in his very direction. Intentionally or not, the person would soon get to him, and, unless Damon managed to crawl all the way to the next door in the following minute, which seemed very unlikely, the person would see him, helpless and easily taken care of.

Because let's be realistic, there was no way the person was just a random kid who had decided to break into the school when there wasn't school. No teenager should be that much of a masochist. And even if some were, in Mystic Falls, people who ended up in places they shouldn't be usually died a terrible and undeserved death. Especially when a bunch of supernatural beings were playing tag in that same place. So either this was an ally, and Damon would never hear the end of it when they'd find him, or this was an enemy, and Damon was screwed.

The footsteps stopped only a handful of meters away from the place where the yet-unknown person would be able to see him. The vampire tensed.

Waiting.

Which one was waiting for the other, he could not tell. Was he waiting for the unknow man / vampire / whatever-suited-the-guy,-even-considering-that-it-might-not-be-a-guy, or was the unknown person waiting for him? Who would reveal themselves first, Damon, or the possible enemy? Would the person walk into view first, or would the vampire breathe a tad too loudly, would his heart beat a bit too fast? Would he see, or would he be heard first?

Was he going to die?

No, Damon was totally not panicking. Absolutely not. It wasn't as if a handful of people wanted him dead, for good reasons, and a number of other people wanted him dead just because. Not at all.

It was not the time for his heart to start beating like that! Maybe it was because of the vervain shot, but nonetheless. It wasn't the right time for him to go all scared-little-boy. The vampire could have sworn his heartbeat could be heard from the other side of the school, perhaps even from underground. Louder. Louder! Louder!!! Loud enough that anyone, even a simple human being, could tell he was here. And as he grew more scared that his heart would betray him, it got worse...

It was the vervain, it was the ver...

Damon didn't hear the footsteps resuming, so focused on his own uncontrolled fear as he was.

But he definitely heard the voice. Mocking him gently. Mocking him, yes, but lovingly.

The vampire's head snapped up, despite the haze he still was in.

Eyes met.

Something wet rolled down one of his cheeks, and tumbled on his lips clumsily. It tasted of salt.

Alaric crouched down, and the ghost's fingers trailed the path taken by the tear. Ric had a small grin on his face, almost full of himself, Damon could tell. But it wasn't what mattered.

What mattered was that the vampire had felt his lover's touch. The dampness left by the tear had disappeared, taken away by the skin of the supposedly-dead hunter. The supposedly-ghostly hunter. The hunter he had been unable to actually touch for months. The man... or, rather, vampire, now, the vampire he loved.

He could feel his touch. He could...

“ _Did you miss me, perhaps?”_

There was still something otherworldly to his voice, as if they weren't completely on the same plane of existence, but Alaric was indeniably here. Corporeal. As he hadn't been in months.

“Don't flatter yourself. Elena vervained me, and I'm a mess. That's all, buddy. I'm not crying for you.”

The ghost seemed amused for a moment.

“ _Right, I believe you. But I believe we have an Immortal to hunt, don't we? Speaking of which, was it really Elena? Silas seems to be able to impersonate just anyone.”_

“Oh, it was her. She just learned Katherine was around, and well, she... snapped, I guess. If she had been Silas, I'd be dead, not vervained...”

Realizing what he had just said really meant, Damon froze again. How could he have been so...!

Ric helped him up, but the older vampire now had a strange glint in his eyes, and he stood a bit more stiffly than what was usual for his laid-back attitude. If the ghost hadn't know any better, he'd have said Damon was even schifting away from him ever so slowly.

Which was completely ridiculous, right?

“ _Damon...?”_

The vampire squinted at the ghost, bracing himself for utter disappointment.

“You're Silas, aren't you? That's why I could feel you. You're not actually a ghost.”

Alaric blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“ _The... The Veil, Damon. Bonnie dropped it. That's why I'm corporeal. I am your Alaric.”_

The hunter heard Damon's heart miss a beat, but he also saw the vampire take a step back, unbelieving. His own heart, as dead as it was, felt suddenly crushed. His smile melted, and he took a step towards his Damon.

The vampire staggered a bit, and found himself with his back against the high school lockers.

Ric felt really cold, all of a sudden. Damon... Damon, once again, wasn't allowing himself to hope.

But the cold turned warm, and hot, and burning, and anger seized the hunter. His features hardened, and his face almost turned scary.

Damon flinched again, as if that had just confirmed his suspicions, but before he could say anything, two arms blocked him against the lockers.

Alaric, his hands firmly pressed against the metal, looked his lover right in the eyes, right in the soul, as some would say. The frightening look on his face disappeared, but he still looked grave, and, maybe, a bit dangerous. Only, not so terrifying anymore.

It wasn't his goal, after all.

Damon couldn't say anything. His brain hadn't gone down, yet, but his control over his body certainly had. Only Ric's warm breath seemed to be enough, to shut down all physical reactions. And the vampire had no idea how to reboot it.

Not that it was his main concern, for now.

His main concern took the form of one very attractive, very corporeal, very... hardening... history teacher / hunter / Original vampire, Alaric J. Saltzman, boyfriend extraordinaire. And, once again, supposedly dead. And, though it wasn't something Damon liked to think about, possibly being currently impersonated by one freaking witchy Immortal.

Murderously so, the witchy Immortal.

So, Silas or not-Silas, that was the question.

Personally, Damon was all for not-Silas, but since when was life fair with him, or even slightly obliging?

Again, if that was Silas, and not Alaric, the bastard was trying very hard to convince the vampire that he wasn't who he was... Damon mused as two lips drew closer and closer to his own. Very, very hard. Seducingly hard.

Speaking of hardness...

Ric kissed his loved one with caution, at first. Only being able to feel it, again, lips against lips, breath against breath, warmth against warmth... It was slowly drowning the accumulated anger that had been plaguing him since the Veil had been dropped. He had a feeling it wouldn't be permanent, and that as soon as they'd get separated, it would build up again, but well, he took what he could.

And apparently, he was being offered more than he had first feared.

Damon, despite his disbelief, was definitely responding. They were almost stuck together at that point, and a sly grin pulled at the ghost's lips when he felt something twitch against his thigh. Something that wasn't his.

Immediately, the kiss went from cautious to passionate, Ric broke his lover's resistance with his tongue, and his hands left the lockers to get a better hold of Damon himself. The vampire moaned a bit, even if he would outright deny it later on, and the “something” that had twitched just before suddenly sprang into life. Alaric definitely witnessed his boyfriend blushing crimson, between his lashes, and his decision was made.

That was not something Silas would have done, even for the sake of impersonation... He hoped so.

Dropping to his knees, he quickly opened Damon's fly, his eyes dark with lust as the vampire's cock, as hard as can be, was revealed, for him only. His lips stayed for an instant on the head, as if contemplating how to proceed from here, but it only lasted an instant. What happened then was another story. A story that made Damon melt once more, and hope again.

Still, because he was Damon freaking Salvatore, he managed to gasp, between two groans.

“If you eventually prove to be Silas, I am so going to remember this and hate you forever.”

Alaric preferred not to point out that the vampire already hated Silas, and possibly forever too. Instead, he chose to act with maturity for the two of them, since Damon apparently was unable to do it for himself.

In other words, the ghost tried to growl an outraged _“Damon!”_ in annoyance. But his mouth was already quite busy otherwise, so it cannot be said if the vampire heard him or not.

 


	20. Echoes

When the two finally decided it was more than an emergency to stop playing around, and go in search of Silas, Damon still had some difficulties standing. Or, more accurately, he could stand just fine, but the world was still a bit wibbly wobbly around him, and it impeded his capacity to defend himself. It didn't prevent him from standing on his own feet, though. It wasn't all that bad...

If someone asked, it was totally because of the vervain, and certainly not because of some previous, erm, amorous activities. Nothing of the sort could make Damon feel weak at the knees. Nothing!

Of course, the vervain was a big part of the problem. But let it not be said that it wasn't the only reason to the problem. The vampire forbade it, and his boyfriend simply rolled his eyes. Sometimes, not bothering to argue with Damon was just the easiest choice.

Though, against a guy who couldn't die and could make perfect illusions out of his magic, being able to defend oneself or not might not matter so much.

They were screwed anyway.

But, on the bright side, it wasn't the first time the residents of Mystic Falls thought they were screwed, and look at them! They were still here! Alive!

...Well, mostly alive.

“Alright, buddy, let's go and hunt an Immortal!”

Damon staggered a bit, but bravely decided to ignore his passing weakness. Damon Salvatore was never weak, and that was it. Even when he was, he wasn't. Why? Because he had decided so, duh!

Alaric watched the vampire with vague amusement. When it became obvious that no matter what the idiot said, there was definitely something weakening him, possibly the residual vervain from that previous shot, the ghost decided there was no point waiting for his boyfriend to stop his denial.

Ric bit directly into his own wrist, and joined Damon with two long strides.

The vampire was about to ask why it smelled of blood, all of a sudden, but he was yanked backwards before the words could leave his mouth. His ice-colored eyes grew wide for an instant.

But he didn't fall on the floor. Instead, the back of his head bumped lightly against something, no, someone's chest. Also, an arm kind of... slithered?, to his own chest, before pulling him into some sort of strange... hug?

And then he felt the warm feeling of blood on his lips.

Damon wasn't sure as to what was happening exactly, but he found that he didn't care right now. Weakened as he was, that is, not so much, but just enough for him to feel it nonetheless, even a few drops of blood could make him feel better. His lips moved on their own, and before he knew it, his tongue was licking the already-closing wound dry, searching for the smallest amount of blood.

Warm, warm blood.

Blood that he knew. Blood that he had already tasted in the past. Blood that he had already savoured once upon a time.

And still, not exactly the same blood as that first time. Not as... human, as before. Different. Warm, but colder yet, than before. Pleasant, nonetheless.

When he was certain there was nothing left for him to suck, or, at least, nothing of that particular nature for him to suck, the vampire tilted his head backwards, just a little, just enough.

Enough to see the blue of Alaric's eyes looking back at him. Enough to see a soft, yet amused, smile on the ghost's lips. Enough to say the hunter had appreciated it at least as much as he himself had.

“ _You're feeling better?”_

Well, now that Ric mentioned it...

Damon squinted at the ghost, taking in the found-again neatness of the world. He certainly had no issue staring at the few and pale lashes of his lover.

“Totally. But, won't you sharing your blood just now worsen your own thirst? I don't think you took the time to feed on the way, and you certainly didn't take anything since the day you... You know.”

“ _Still a ghost, Damon. I don't have needs, even if I can eat or drink again, now that I am corporeal. So it's in everyone's interest that I give you some of my blood. Because I wouldn't appreciate it if you got yourself killed by Silas.”_

An awkward silence succeeded that statement. There was no need to point out that Damon could still be killed, that at some point the Veil would be back in place and Ric would disappear off this realm once again, and that they were going after a very powerful monster. There was no need, as always, to point out their respective weaknesses. They knew them too well as it was. They had been confronted to these weaknesses too many times. Taunted with them. Hurt by them.

And some times, killed by them.

They weren't going to forget them anytime soon.

When they reached the caves under the high school, the ghost thought of splitting up, but Damon snatched his left arm, not keen on letting Alaric out of his sight.

“ _Damon, I don't think this will be the most efficient way to...”_

“'Don't care. Besides, that way you can protect me from the Wicked Witch of the West. You are kind of indestructible, and you can't die as you're already deader than dead. It's not my case, if you'll remember, so stick with me.”

Ric didn't find it in him to protest much more, only letting out a weak _“But...”_ which didn't get him anywhere, in the end.

So instead of splitting up, the two stayed together as they walked in the dimly lit caves. Alaric still wasn't sure why they hadn't been sealed off, at least on the side of the school, because, really, who knew what could happen down here to an adventurous teenager who didn't know better than to explore the possibly-secret-awesome-bat-cave under their high school? But well, here they were, and here they shall remain, though hopefully not for too long, until they found the Immortal Bastard. And hopefully too, they wouldn't only “find” him, but also “deal” with him. Like, definitely. For real. And... Well, you know, it was all hope, but still.

Bonnie surely had a plan, when she decided to get rid of the Veil. She surely didn't do it only for the fun of the thing, right? Nor was she likely to have done it to please Silas, either. So it only let two options: the young witch had a plan... or she was desperate.

And they were all screwed.

Why did that thought seem disturbingly familiar, again?

Eventually the two vampires, even if, once again, one was technically both ghost and vampire at the moment, wait, did that make him an hybrid of some sort, at least for the time he was corporeal?, anyway, the two heard the echoes of voices.

They shared a worried glance, and hurried on.

What they found when they reached the two voices was totally not unsettling.... Right, who were they kidding? It was so perturbing Damon almost lost it for a second and didn't realize right away who the hadnsome devil, no, wait, the fake Alaric strangling his brother before Elena's and Bonnie's eyes was.

Ric, on the other, didn't falter at all. Being a Falkenbach had its perks, once in a while. Those simply didn't balance out the drawbacks for them to be even considered, most of the time.

But here, right now, it was a good thing.

The hunter was simply cool-headed, despite the scene he was now witnessing.

Stefan's head finally snapped, and the vampire's body collapsed to the ground. Fake-Alaric's eyes turned away from Elena as he spotted the shocked expression on the two girls' faces. Identical blue eyes met each others, but the two Rics didn't react in the same way at all.

If anything, Alaric stood more stiffly and his face looked sterner than ever, but he was still cool-headed. Preparing himself to move anytime, perhaps.

Fake-Alaric, on the other hand, seemed to reveal in the others' shock. He didn't grin or smirk as Klaus would have, but the lazy smile on his lips felt more sinister than before, and without really moving his borrowed features or anything, he still managed to look more dangerous...

To look more like Ric's alter-ego, the hunter realized.

So that was what Silas had been up to, these last minutes.

Impersonating him in his darkest hours, in the hope of making the girls believe that, perhaps, it wasn't Silas, but truly Evilaric, released by the dropping of the Veil, and ready to go back to his task. That there was no hope of any sort left, since in spite of dealing with the Immortal, they'd have to deal with the deranged Original too.

“Well, look who's joining this little party! Damon Salvatore and Alaric Saltzman! Only Caroline Forbes is missing at that point, but I suggest we don't wait for her. Especially since dear sweet Caroline is currently busy cutting her hands off. We wouldn't want to disturb the girl, right?”

Immediately after that little speech, the Immortal made both Bonnie and Damon choke on nothing, just because he could. Just because he liked to prove his power over other people, especially those opposing him so fiercely.

Silas didn't target Elena, though, for a reason that was obvious to him only, and also because the young vampire seemed a bit worse off her fight with her doppelganger, and wouldn't be much help anyway.

And Silas didn't target Alaric, because he assumed, wrongly as it was, but he assumed nonetheless, that seeing himself hurting his friends after all that had happened with his psychopathic alter-ego would disturb the ghost enough as it was.

How wrong he was!

Certainly, Ric didn't like the fact that his friends were hurting, right now. It angered him, even.

But it being done with his face? He couldn't care less. He was a cursed man, and this little illusion was far from enough to make him lose view of the reality under the illusion. There was no way he could relate to what was happening, no way it could affect him as Silas thought it would, because he was a Falkenbach. Killing was his nature, his purpose, his truth in life. And fighting was the way to achieve killing, in this case. Nothing could impede his too-rational mind less than someone pretending to be him and more or less reneacting even something he felt truly guilty about.

That thing, right before him, that monster who had gone after those he cared for too many times, it wasn't him. It was Silas. It was the enemy. The appearance he had chosen to sport held no deeper meaning to the ghost's subconscious, and he could easily shut down the part of his concious that he usually used to ensure he was at least pretending to be normal; to react as a normal person would.

Silas was the Enemy, and that was enough. He having Ric's looks at the moment would not hinder the hunter's capability to judge the situation.

It meant nothing to the cursed man.

Damon and Bonnie choking on the ground, on the other hand...

The ghost walked slowly, calmly to his fake-self, and stopped only a foot away from Silas. You could say that they were looking eye to eye, if not seeing so, on that matter.

As expressionless as usual, Ric's empty gaze drilled right into Silas'.

There was a moment of silence, before the ghost spoke, very matter-of-factly.

“ _Impressive. The inhumanity in the eyes, the dull emptiness of my soul is very convincing.”_

The Immortal was a bit taken aback at the words, but he couldn't manage to say anything at this point, because Alaric had gripped his throat so forcefully the ghost's fingers were now digging through the skin. Before Silas knew it, half his neck was being thrown away, against a wall, leaving him with only a gaping hole in his throat.

“ _But this inhumanity that is mine... It cannot be convinced of anything. It isn't humane enough to be convinced. Your trick is not enough.”_

Bonnie and Damon were back on their feet, shaking a bit. Silas' hold upon them had slipped away in the Immortal's surprise. Elena had grabbed Stefan's unmoving body, and taken her boyfriend out of physical harm's reach, if not magical. They watched and listened to Alaric's voice, to the coldness in his tone, and once again they were reminded of how dangerous he had been as a human, of how dangerous he had become as an enhanced Original vampire.

Maybe Silas was worse, but it wasn't him they feared at the moment.

Soon enough, the Immortal's throat was whole once again.

“Ever so, you cannot kill me for all your strenght, abomination.”

And the form of Alaric Saltzman wavered into that of a slightly smaller person with black hair and ice-blue eyes. Damon felt himself tense at the sight, too vividly reminded of another time when...

Then Ric smiled a bit. A freezing smile, perhaps, but a smile nonetheless.

“ _Maybe I cannot. But Bonnie sure can incapacitate you, if I keep you occupied long enough.”_

Silas only managed to hide his face as he turned back into stone.

 


	21. This was going to be messy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my summer job has ended, I'm back to school... Hopefully I'll update regularly again

Damon had just been threatened by the dead ghost of a vampire he had previously killed, and yes, her name was Lexi, which simply wasn't supposed to happen in the grand scheme of life / unlife / whatever,-even-the-supernatural-side-of-the-world-wasn't-that- cracked-usually, but he didn't care.

Or, obviously he was concerned that Bonnie hadn't managed to put the Veil back into place and that a few dozens of vengeful ghostly beings were hanging out in Mystic Falls, but it still seemed a bit dull of a problem when he thought back to the previous night he had spent with Ric, who was supposedly dead too.

He'd have done without being threatened by Lexi, but as Alaric had told him before leaving to grab something to eat with Elena and Jeremy at the cemetery, Damn certainly had deserved it. Hell, he was surprised he hadn't been killed by the blonde already.

Not that, considering the current circumstances, it'd have changed much right away. Dead or not, Damon would have stayed present to grate on Lexi's nerves.

Damn, they had to find a way to drop back the Veil...

Even if it meant Ric would be physically gone, again.

Luckily for Damon, the doorbell rang before the vampire's heart could clench so much it would probably be reduced to ashes.

Unluckily for him, the sight waiting for him on the other side of the door wasn't one he was happy to see.

Vaughn.

Damn. So, supernatural hunters counted as supernatural beings? He should have seen that one coming, considering Alaric and Elena were eating with Van Helsing Junior in a graveyard right now. Stupid Damon.

Let's just hope cursed men didn't count as supernatural beings as supernatural hunters did, because Damon did not want to have to deal with Theodoric Saltzman again on top of everything else.

Eitherway, things happened, as they were meant to. Or maybe not, but how would the vampire be able to tell? He had yet to find the Book of Destiny, thank you very much.

Things being, Vaughn was a bit pissed at having been left to starve on the island, Vaughn wanted both the Cure and Silas, and Vaughn had a frigging wood-loaded-gun with him.

Since when were ghosts allowed to have weapons? That was clearly cheating, since they couldn't die definitely!

The hunter almost shot the vampire, and Damon found himself catching his breath when the ghost bursted out of his field of vision and landed on the lawn, a few metters away from the door.

Wait, what?

Damon blinked, his sight suddenly invaded by something... red.

His brain rebooted, and why had it disconnected itself in the first place, really?, and the vampire recognized the nature of the red thing clutching onto him. Hell, the red thing had a heartbeat. An erratic heartbeat. And the red thing had a well developped chest, if what he felt pressing against his arm was anything to go by. The red thing seemed very familiar, all of a sudden.

Like, the red thing was a woman. The red thing was a friend. The red thing was Magdalena.

And the red thing smelled of blood.

Now that Damon's brain had successfully reconnected, the vampire could appreciate the fact that Magdalena Haguenhauer was bleeding on him while Vaughn was getting back on his feet.

He wasn't exactly sure how everything had ended up that way, but he sure as hell didn't want it to go souther than it already was. Apparently Mag had spared him a gun wound, and he guessed she had ended up wounded instead. He certainly wasn't going to let that sacrifice go to waste. He wasn't that kind of psychopathic vampire.

And he didn't want to be the one to tell Ric he had gotten his cousin killed, too.

Then again, this time either he didn't get to do anything about Vaughn, and damn, what was it with him today? Was it because he had gotten laid the night before, after many, many nights of nothing? Had it made him lax? Or was it because he was becoming a loser?

Damon kind of hoped it was the latter, surprisingly, because he sure as hell didn't want to forget about sex with his boyfriend... Not that it would be an issue for long.

Before he could become more depressed than he already was, the vampire turned to look at his younger brother while still holding Magdalena tight, just in case.

Stefan looked up from the bleeding heart in his hand, and damn, wasn't that appropriate?, and turned his attention back on the older vampire.

“You're welcome.”

Damon winced a thankful smile.

“Thanks, as always, brother dearest.”

Stefan rolled his eyes, but soon enough a moan ended their antics, and the two brothers were looking at Mag. Who wasn't as passed out as Damon had first believed.

They caried her inside.

Lexi joined the two vampires and the injured Falkenbach with a frown on her face.

“ _Well, you can say I'm impressed. I had barely seen her arriving that she was round kicking that guy away from you, bastard. I wish you weren't so lucky.”_

“Wait, so you saw what happened?”

“ _Obviously. He already had a finger on the trigger, and being kicked in the head might have slightly unfocused him. That's why the shot went off. Look at her leg.”_

Stefan took a deep breath, and actually looked at the bloody wound that they should already have examined. Damon watched him, a bit anxious as to his reaction to the scent of human blood, but there was nothing to worry about. Sure, Stefan still wasn't comfortable with blood around, but he wouldn't jump at anyone's throat any time soon. He could handle himself.

The vampires looked at the wound through the torn fabric of Mag's pants, and winced.

This was gross. And it had to hurt a lot. And it'd be a bitch to get out. Damon didn't envy Magdalena, right now. Never to shoot a human being with a wood bullet, duly noted.

Brown flickered between the Falkenbach's partly parted lashes, and the oldest vampire in the room caught sight of the woman's awareness.

Lexi bit her lower lip, and sat down next to the woman.

“ _Alright, this will hurt a lot, but I absolutely have to get the bullet shards out of your thigh before we can even think about healing you. I don't think you want shards in your leg anymore than I want to see Stefan in drag.”_

Magdalena chuckled at the randomness, while Stefan looked a bit offended. Then the woman winced in pain.

“Just do it. I can deal with pain easily.”

After all, just like Alaric, Mag Haguenhauer was a Saltzman, in curse if not in name. Cursed to withstand pain through any ordeal, as long as it had a point. Cursed and able to go past suffering if there was a goal in sight. Here, preserving her health, because she was pretty sure the human body wasn't meant to host any wooden parts.

Pain was not a confortable state of being, obviously. But she could ignore it without trouble.

Lexi nodded, and glared at the boys to turn around and not look as she took off the other woman's pants. She was not going to dig into flesh through the hole in the pants. And the boys had no business looking. Especially since they were both taken.

Once Lexi was certain no Salvatore sibling could see, she did her best to relieve the red head of her pants without moving the injured leg too much. Once that done, she flexed her fingers, and took a deep breath. She wasn't used to doing this on someone else than herself, and on someone who did not heal magically afterwards either.

This was going to be messy.

Stefan and Damon did their best not to peak, even when they heard the squeeshish sounds of...

Anyway.

Even if they were worried for Magdalena, they weren't supposed to look, so they wouldn't look.

It wasn't as if Lexi could literally butcher the lawyer's leg with a wrong move, right?

Oh hell! Just what was that sound?

Eventually the oldest vampire sighed, and took out the three freaking bits of bullet. She put them in a small cup that one of the boys had brought.

A critical eye to the wound and to the blatant lack of color on her patient's face told her everything she needed to know.

Lexi bit her own wrist to the point of bleeding, and forced it against the woman's face. The red head almost threw up at the contact, not because of the coppery taste, but simply because her stomach was behaving strangely for some totally obvious reason that she'd rather not think about. Still, Lexi finally saw the gapping wound close a bit after a minute, so it had to mean the other female had to have drank her blood, if only a bit of it.

The vampire took back her wrist, bit back into it because the wound had already closed, and offered it again to the wounded woman.

Magdalena seemed a bit wary of her at first, but maybe she was just weary of it all, with a “e”, because, damn, it wasn't everyday someone had to search your flesh for a split wooden bullet, especially not when you were human.

It took another minute, but by then the gross mess in the woman's thigh had gone away and into oblivion. Mag was still white as a ghost, or, considering Lexi was in the room and not that light as to her skin tone, whiter than a ghost in particular, and her pants were obviously ruined with blood and a gap in the fabric, but hell. She was alright.

Not healthy, but alright.

She wouldn't try to stand up right away, though.

Lexi stood up and took a step back, grinning faintly.

“Et voilà! _'Twas but a flesh wound.”_

Mag arched an eyebrow at her, but a smile still tugged at her lips.

“Obviously.”

It was the moment Damon chose to make his presence known again by clearing his throat rather soundly.

“All is well in wonderland, but, girls, what do we do now?”

And he pointed at the for-now-deader-than-dead body of Vaughn, who presented a great view on the lawn just outside the boarding house from where they were positioned in said boarding house.

Stefan glanced at the body, and back at his brother.

“Find a way to keep him dead, I'd say.”

For some reason, taken over by a short case of hysteria perhaps, Damon waggled his eyebrows at his brother.

“Stefan, I said 'girls', so unless you didn't tell me something important all these years... Though that might explain why Elena was not interested in me and rather in you despite all my efforts. You know, if you're secretly a girl, and she's a les...”

“Damon.”

Stefan was giving his brother a long-suffering glare.

Wonder why.

“Be serious please.”

Lexi chose that moment to pop into the conversation.

“ _Actually, Damon, Stefan is...”_

Another long-suffering glare. This time aimed at the female vampire.

“Please, for the sake of our firendship, Lexi, don't.”

Lexi only shrugged.

It was Magdalena who spoke up next, giving an answer to the original question. The bantering had been sympathic enough, but they had to deal with the dead body on the lawn, didn't they?

“Concerning the ghost... Alaric told us, the sheriff and me, to bring any dead-dead ghost to a clearing outside of town. I was just coming back from my guard duty when I saw him attack you, Damon. The sheriff Forbes must be still be there, beheading whoever needs to be beheaded.”

Stefan nodded, Damon sounded impressed, and they decided to bring Vaughn to the clearing right away. As for Lexi, she was sniffing the wooden bullet with a disgusted look on her face.

“ _Damn, Damon, you bastard, you really got lucky. Those things reek of werewolf venom.”_

 

 


	22. The hunters of the Five and C4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, with Alaric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you miss my gruesome and morbid descriptions of blood dripping monsters?!?  
> *NOOOOO!!!!!*  
> Too bad, you're getting them anyway.

Alaric ran as fast as he could to the Mystic Grill, anger clouding his judgment a little. In less than a minute, he'd be there, but for now he wasn't, and he did not trust Connor Jordan not to pass time by slaughtering a few innocents. The guy might have been human, but he had had no claim using baits, as the episode with April Young had proven already. And at the time the guy had only been obsessed with getting rid of every vampire he met.

Now it as worse. Jordan had a litteral mission, now. To get rid of Silas.

Normally it wouldn't be a plan Ric would have a problem with, considering the Immortal was a major ass and a murderous bastard with overcheated powers. But as it was, they had already taken care of Silas. There was no need getting rid of him again. And, once more, Alaric was against the idea of collateral damage.

And to top it all, Jordan wanted his revenge on Elena.

Why couldn't the girl have a normal life, for once? Just, you know, a normal graduation ceremony with her friends after having lunch with her surrogate father?

Oh wait, because Elena was a vampire and a doppelganger, most of her friends were supernatural beings and / or dead, one not excluding the other, her kind-of-father-in-law was a dead Original vampire, and the town of Mystic Falls was suffering from a ghost invasion.

Alaric blurred into presence right outside the Mystic Grill. He could see Connor sitting at the bar, which made him grit his teeth.

Right... Anger management. He was good at that. Usually. When he hadn't spent half a year not being able to act and protect those who needed to be protected. Those he cared for.

So, not right now.

Still, he had practice, and he forced a casual smile onto his face.

He entered the Grill, and returned a wave from a student who was eating there and seemed very surprised to see him back in town. He headed directly to Connor Jordan, though.

Ric sat down next to the hunter, and considered tearing him into halves without a trial, but he had to admit it would be messy if he did it here, in public. He really enjoyed imagining it, though.

There was a short conversation, which turned moot the moment the other ghost admitted to having planted bombs on himself. Ric wasn't amused.

Jordan didn't get to dwell on it, though, even if he saw the vampire's face going from joking to cold-enough-to-give-him-chills. Before the hunter could do anything the vampire had grabbed his wrist with indomitable strength and the world blurred. The man wasn't sure how strong the vampire was, but he certainly was stronger than any monster he had ever met. Even with his own enhanced strength as a member of the Brotherhood of the Five, he couldn't even struggle.

So Jordan triggered the explosives. He had no idea if he was still in the Grill or not, because that surely must have been what it felt like to be moved from spot by a vampire at full speed, but he sure as hell was going to take the bastard out with him. Because the guy might have been older than any vampire he had dealt with, or something else entirely, but nothing could survive being blown to bits, as far as he knew. And vampires burned with fire, anyway.

After that the ghost didn't think anything else, because he was, well, deader than before. He'd come back, obviously, but not before some time.

And if Ric was lucky, it'd take more time for Jordan to come back from being blown to bits than what was needed to be revived from a broken neck, or even a beheading.

If he could not see the bastard's ugly mug until the Veil was back in place, he'd be happy enough. Especially considering there was no way he'd manage to get what was left of Connor Jordan to the clearing. What little what left of him, in fact. Hell, mashed potatoes would be easier to bring with him than that.

As Ric got back onto his feets, he tried to ignore the reddish stains that covered the street. Maybe no one would question the presence of human mash all over the street, not before the ghost got back into one bit and it disappeared? Yeah, right, and Ric wasn't covered in human residue.

He did self-consciously dust off his pants, but it didn't change much of anything, really.

Not that, himself, he was in a stellar state either. Alaric had no mirror to look at himself but he could see how half of his shirt had been blown away, because apparently being corporeal meant his shirt wasn't ghostly either, and if he couldn't feel the sticky business of exploded flesh covering him, it was because his skin was too busy reforming after having dealt with an explosive bastard right in the face. He couldn't tell for sure because it hurt in a lot of places, but he had a feeling he had lost half a jawbone to this nonsense.

He tried poking at it, just out of morbid curiosity.

Oh, yeah. There was, or, more accurately there wasn't, a missing part to his jawbone. In between torn flesh and flowing blood that squished under the tip of his fingers, he even felt the bone reforming from nothing.

If that was his jawbone, he didn't want to know what his left eye looked like, considering the pain he could feel coming from it, and the fact he couldn't see a thing.

Following a foolish hope that he'd feel better, and because it'd give his flesh and skin and bones and body in general some more time to get back into shape, Alaric stretched.

Something popped out of his back, which definitely felt uncomfortable, but not more uncomfortable than his jawbone. He stretched a bit more, frowning, and two other somethings popped out of his flesh. He took a deep breath, already fearing what it was that he'd find, and reached with his right arm. He had fallen right onto his back when the exploding bastard had actually exploded.

In between torn fabric and scraped off skin, that his fingers only ghosted over not to worsen the pain, he found small bits of hard material.

Rolling his shoulders a bit, he felt one pop out, and grabbed it before it fell.

Then he looked at it.

Oh, gross. He had to have rolled right into gravel after having restrained a kamikaze ghost, right? Because it wasn't yuck enough as it was. And it didn't hurt enough as it did. And...

Right, less complaining, more getting rid of the gravel stuck in his flesh and grating at his bones.

After five excruciating minutes, Alaric didn't look like an undead monster straight out of a horror movie, but only straight out of a horror movie. After all, the whole backstreet he had managed to drag Jordan to, out of sight and not as conspicuous as it would have been if they had exploded right outside the Mystic Grill, was covered in a very suspicious pinky-red goo. And even if all his skin and other bits were back in place, his clothes were still torns, and he was literally dripping blood... and other things he didn't want to think about.

Alaric took a short moment to breathe in, breathe out, before he got the hell away from the horror scene. It was already a miracle no one had walked in on him all monster-from-your-worst-zombie-nightmares-looking, he wasn't going to wait for the police to arrive because of the explosion.

Maybe that was why no one else had walked in already, because of the explosion. Too scared, maybe. Anyway, it was all the better for him.

He so did not want to explain, with or without compulsion, why there was a bloody mess in the backstreet.

Just as he walked away, he heard police sirens.

Alaric took the long way to the Grill, not willing to meet with said police sirens, that surely came from a police car, and whose police officers would certainly question the half-dressed bloodied man coming right from the direction of the latest explosion in town.

And as soon as he turned onto the place in front of the Mystic Grill, not suspiciously hiding his terrible state behind the nearest cars, he saw something that would have had him roll his eyes, if it hadn't been so serious an event he shouldn't and didn't feel the want to roll his eyes.

Ric had decided that, despite the state he was in, he'd take a look from afar, just to see if Jordan, or one of his little friends, had left another gift to the nice citizens of Mystic Falls.

Obviously he had been right to suspect there would be more to it.

Because really? Weren't the Brotherhood members supposed to be acting on their supernatural urge to end Silas, rather than on their personal urge for revenge? Apparently not, considering one of them had put Matt Donovan on an exploding device.

Seriously, the hunters of the Five and C4? It seemed to be a thing, and Alaric sure hoped Jeremy hadn't gotten it too.

Why did they have to want to blow things up? It was dangerous not only to the target, but also to the passersby. It wasn't the way to do things! Acid, on the other hand...

Focus.

The other ghost finally got the hell away, certainly to leave the two lovebirds to despair alone, and because, all things considered, he needed to get back to undoing Silas. Just, like, it was his main purpose both in life and the afterlife, man.

Couldn't he have started with that?

In a blink, Ric was next to the two, who gaped at the sight, while he studied the exploding device.

“ _I hate it when it's homemade...”_

He glanced up at Rebekah, who had ended in Matt's place just before her ex left.

“ _Don't move. I can disable it, but I'll need some time.”_

The Original stared at him, dumbfounded. Firts, Alaric Saltzman had appeared out of nowhere, shirt in shreds and torn pants, thought the latter not as bad as the former, covered in blood and other things she didn't want to dwell on the nature of, and now he was offering help?

After all her family had done to him?

“Why would you do that? Don't you hate us for what our mother did to you?”

Eyes still on the device and knealing down, Alaric answered in a simple tone.

“ _I hate your mother, true, but I don't hate you. I'm not your biggest fan either, considering you tend to murder people, but you're currently trying to become a better person, despite what you are. Ring a bell about my own situation, or Damon's? Now, shush. I'm familiar with landmines and all, but we're less likely to be blown up if I can concentrate.”_

At that, the hunter frowned, looked up, and stared at Matt who had not moved.

“ _Though it would not hurt if you moved away, as she suggested. Rebekah and I can't be killed by the explosion, but you could die if I fail with you still around. I don't know, go and wait at the Grill or something. If nothing goes boom, it's good news.”_

“And if something goes boom, you'll still be alright, I get it.”

Matt cast a last look at Rebekah, who shrugged him off as if it wasn't a big deal. She didn't want him around either if she was to be blown to bits.

A minute passed, which Ric used to open the device and get a better look at it, before she spoke again.

“I could just walk off it. It wouldn't do anything lasting, and you know it.”

Alaric snorted, before reaching for a green wire with caution.

“And that way, you wouldn't risk being blown away too.”

“ _Oh, believe me, I do not wish to go boom a second time today. But you don't want it either, Rebekah, because it godamn hurts. I was missing half my jawbone only twenty minutes ago, and it's not something I recommend experiencing.”_

The female Original vampire frowned at him, and the state of his clothing suddenly took a whole new meaning for her.

“So that was you, that explosion?”

Ric winced, but didn't deny it.

“ _Another wacko ghost hunter was dressed in C4 at the Grill. I grabbed him and ran the farthest away possible, but it meant I was holding onto him when he exploded. The deputies must have already called for reinforcement, considering the mess it did in the street.”_

“Damn, the afterlife is hard on you.”

Ric smiled wrily, a finger on a wire, ready to tuck it out and go home for a change of clothes, or explode with it, one more time.

“ _No more than life was. Now, a deep breath, Rebekah, and we're in for fate to decide whether or not I'll be the only one dressed in rags today.”_

Both Originals watched anxiously as he finally disabled the device from hell.

Fortunately, it did not explode. It wouldn't have killed them, alright, but it'd have hurt like hell. And they did not wish to be hurt that much, or at all if they had a choice in the matter. Which they didn't.

Mission complete. Now Alaric only had to get back to the boarding house. And to get new clothes.

 


	23. Wasn't your day as eventful as mine?

When Ric entered the boarding house, he was a sight to see. Not a particularly nice sight to see, though. More like an uncommon sight to see.

So that was what Damon did, he saw. And more than that, he watched, at a loss for words.

Alaric himself looked really great. No missing bits of flesh, no bloodshot eyes, no visible wounds.

But the thing was, the ghost was also an Original vampire. It was totally normal for him to look healthy, because almost everything that could potentially happen to him would heal right away. Really, only amputation could not be undone for a normal vampire, which Alaric wasn't, and an haircut too, because, well, hair didn't heal, it grew back.

Besides, the vampire was a ghost. Anything life-threatening would disappear if he “died”.

So, yes, Ric was alright.

It certainly wasn't the case for everything else, especially his clothes. They were in shreds. Like, Damon wasn't even sure if they used to be clothes at some point. The pants, he could more or less tell, but the shirt? Had it ever been a shirt at some point? Really, was anyone sure it wasn't just an old rag to begin with? And if he remembered right, it used to be a... white... whitish... shirt?

Well, now, every inch of fabric on Alaric Saltzman had either been torn off or painted bloody. Freshly dried bloody, at that. So, brownishly red, perhaps?

What in hell had happened to the ghost?

The vampire asked just that, once his voice was his to control again.

Ric arched an eyebrow, but didn't stop on his way to Damon's room. He knew the guy had to have kept some of his old clothes. If only for the scent. And it wasn't as if the ghost had seen the vampire cuddle with his shirts to go to sleep, only two days before, right? Oh wait, he had.

It had been cute at the time. And now it would come in handy.

“ _Connor Jordan thought it'd be a great idea to kamikaze himself, as, you know, he doesn't care for dying, at the Grill, and I told him otherwise.”_

Damon followed Ric on the stairs, frowning a bit. He wasn't certain how dissuading a supernatural and ghostly hunter to kill himself in front of everyone could possibly turn into... this. Hell, he had no idea why Jordan's ghost would want to kill himse...

Wait, had Alaric said “kamikaze”?

“He tried to blow himself up?”

Ric pushed open the door to Damon's room and went directly for the closet.

“ _Oh, he didn't just try, he succeeded.”_

Damon, still following his dead lover around like a love-sick puppy with a big frown on his face, frowned harder. Ric glanced at him for an instant, and decided that, indeed, if the vampire had been a dog, he'd be a siberian husky, given the color pattern. A vampire husky puppy. Uh. Interesting idea, if anything.

“But, didn't you say you stopped him from...?”

“ _I stopped him from blowing himself up in the Mystic Grill, but it wasn't exactly possible to undo the explosion once he triggered the C4. So I just grabbed him and rushed us out before the blast happened. That's why I'm covered in bits of mashed hunter, obviously.”_

Damon stood still next to the doorframe of his bathroom, a bemused look on his face, while Ric went to borrow his shower. The guy, ghost or not, needed a shower, that much was certain.

And if the vampire oggled a bit as he wondered what the sheriff department would cover this up with this time, it was totally warranted. The naked ghost in his shower and covered in blood and other... body remains, was his lover, after all.

Damn, Damon wasn't gay except for Ric, but that one surely was worth the difference.

And Damon found it really disturbing to think about his approval for Elizabeth Forbes' hard work as his eyes roamed Alaric's back shamelessly. So he simply stopped thinking about the sheriff, and went back to appreciating the view.

Even if said view was actually washing off a human milkshake.

“Obviously...”

His voice might have drawled a bit on that part, the vampire realized, but he didn't manage to bring himself to care. During the last years, he had learned not to get surprised by anything, and if sarcasm was his answer to the improbability of his life, who had a right to judge?

The way the soap made Ric's body all shiny under the artificial light made him feel a bit constricted in his pants, as it was. Damon really, really wanted to be a bar of soap, right now, and wasn't that ridiculous? The ghost turned the water on once again, and in a minute there was no reminder of the explosion on him, though the water at his feet was pink with... things.

Alaric turned around, and leaned against the tiled wall. He didn't bother with a towel for now, because he really liked the look on his boyfriend's face. And if he had only a few hours left before becoming immaterial again, he was going to enjoy it as uch as he could.

“ _Obviously. Why, wasn't your day as eventful as mine?”_

“Well, it's only midday and I didn't get blown up, that's for sure, but...”

Damon's spirits deflated a bit, as he remembered the events from the morning. Magdalena was alright now, and resting in one of the guestrooms, sure, but still.

“Another of the Five came by and tried to shoot me with werewolf-venom-soaked bullets. I was... saved by your cousin, but she took the bullet for me, and we had to heal her. She didn't look well after that.”

Alaric didn't say anything, at first, and when he did he had reached for a towel. He wasn't quite in the mood anymore, with all that serious talk...

“ _Mag is alright now?”_

“Resting, but yeah. Lexi managed to get all the bits of wood out, and well, she's a Saltzman...”

Ric made a mental note to thank the only other friendly ghost around if he got the chance, before the Veil went back into place. Then he turned his attention back to Damon, not having liked the news that a freaking hunter had tried to infect the vampire with werewolf venom, again.

“ _And you? You're alright?”_

Damon squirmed a bit on his feet, but didn't look away, which was a good sign. The vampire would totally have been one to lie and hide the fact he was infected or hurt, if it had been the case, but he was holding his gaze. Never a guarantee with Damon, but still.

“No problem. Magdalena took us both, hunter and vampire alike, by surprise, and the bullet didn't even get anywhere near me.”

Mostly because the woman had boldly put herself between him and said bullet, but Damon didn't want to dwell on the fact that much. He was still shaken by the very fact that someone else than his brother or Alaric would risk their lives for him, and he didn't want to remember that Mag had indeed taken a huge risk for him.

Alaric sighed, and put on a new shirt, one that didn't look like it had been eaten by a blood slime and spit back because it tasted bad.

They still had many things to deal with, and ultimately...

Ultimately he wasn't going to stay here. Damon would still be able to see him, but he wouldn't really be there. There would be no contact, no warmth, no comfort.

Damon was surprised when the ghost suddenly pulled him into a hug, but he found it strangely pleasant. Comforting, even, and, maybe, just maybe, he thought he would miss it when the world'd get back on tracks. Or, as much on tracks as it ever was in Mystic Falls.

Alaric withdrew himself, and patted his lover on the shoulder, sighing.

“ _Come on, we got to take care of the ghost infestation, and of the Silas statue, and...”_

“I get it, I get it! Please do not remind me of all our problems, or we'll have another one to deal with right away.”

Ric gave him a passing glance, before focusing back on the stairs he was descending. It'd be ridiculous for him to stumble down the stairs because he hadn't been looking, and the ghost didn't exactly appreciate being ridiculous, especially not now that everyone could see him again.

“ _And what would that problem be?”_

Damon rolled his eyes.

“My nervous breakdown.”

A tiny smile lifted the left corner of Ric's mouth, but the vampire could obviously not see that.

“ _Of course.”_

A door opened upstairs, and the two looked up to where they had just come from. Mag was standing in the doorframe of a guestroom, looking a bit lost. She might not have realized yet where she was, since she wasn't exactly familiar with the Salvatore boarding house, and could see no reason why she'd sleep here of all places.

Then her eyes fell on her cousin, and she nodded to herself. Right, vampires were real, and there was a ghost invasion currently on-going in the small town. She had been shot with a wooden bullet. No great penetration, but surely painful. If she had even needed a reason not to become a vampire, it would have been that. She didn't want people to shoot here with that kind of bullets again.

Magdalena's eyes glided to Damon Salvatore, vampire owner of the boarding house that she had possibly saved this morning. Uh.

The woman looked around, but saw no one else in the house.

“Weren't Stefan and his friend here?”

Lexi. Right, Lexi, who had taken care of her leg. Good thing for Stefan to be friend with that girl, even if she was a bit ghostly... At least she wasn't a murderous villain like most ghosts in this town.

Damon checked his watch, and sure enough, he knew where his brother had gone off to.

The vampire rolled his eyes.

“My delightful little brother went to his... I-have-no-idea-which-number-it-is graduation ceremony. It shouldn't be long before it starts, and...”

He squinted, thoughtful.

“I should probably go there too, just in case a bunch of angry ghosts decided to off my friends after, or worse, during the ceremony. It's not like most of them have been adamant to do just that since the Veil is on pause, after all...”

Alaric nodded. The ghosts just knew where almost all of their targets were going to be, wasn't that marvelous? He sure hoped there wouldn't be any death today, except for those who were, in fact, already dead, but that was a difficult wish to please.

“ _You do that. I think I'll go and take the sheriff's place at the clearing so that she can organize her men to keep an eye on the ceremony too. Besides, I'm sure Liz Forbes would appreciate not having to chop off a head every ten minutes, whereas I simply don't care.”_

Then the ghost turned to his boyfriend.

“ _And you don't get yourself killed, you got that?”_

Damon's eyes widened comically, and he brought his hands to his heart.

“I would never!”

Ric gave him a skeptical look, but said nothing. The two disappeared from Mag's field of view. The women blinked at the empty entrance of the boarding house, and yawned.

“Yeah, right, you do that. Me, I'll just... go back to sleep, you know.”

She went for the room she had just left.

Just as they walked out of the boarding house, Alaric and Damon stopped to the sight of someone approaching them. Someone they hadn't seen since... some time. They shared a perplexed look. When exactly had the grim reaper walked out of town? A week ago? Five days? They weren't certain, but they certainly hadn't seen her during the last days.

Judging by the look on her face, Ariane had been very, very confused by what she had just seen. Considering she could see the different layers of the afterlife, and that one of them was currently joined together with the living world...

“What the hell did you idiots do while I was away?”

Yup, Ariane was wondering why there were freaking material ghosts running around and causing havoc. Had they been her, they would surely react just the same way.

So Damon did the sensible thing and put his hands in the air, as if to surrender before she decided to reap him. Just in case.

“We didn't do anything. Silas' the one who went and forced our witch to do naughty things.”

Alaric snorted at that. It surely was the easy way around the truth.

Damon glared at him. He didn't need any help to look like an idiot, thank you very much.

 


	24. Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're selfish, you know that? Read until the end, and tell me you aren't selfish. Tell me you won't make that choice (I'm not even asking about Damon, Damon's choice is obvious)

Ariane didn't feel well. The two idiots were doing their antics, like always, but it really wasn't the time for antics. The sole name of Silas had managed to writhe her insides, and the mad Immortal had managed to get a witch to do things for him? Something that, despite his own enormous power, he couldn't have done on his own? It could only mean it was something serious, because power would never be a problem for Silas. The Immortal witch was so old his power had grown bigger than any other witch could even consider. So it meant it had to be a spell he couldn't do for other reasons. Such as, it needed tapping into Expression...

And certainly, considering the effects, the spell had needed to be done by someone with Expression. The Veil hadn't only been lifted, it wasn't as if everyone had just put the right goggles on. There was something more going on there, and Ariane wasn't sure what it was, but it definitely wasn't something good.

The grim reaper still couldn't feel the arm one of the ghosts had touched, a few minutes ago, as she had been hurrying to the boarding house. The contact had been brief, and painful, and now she felt as if all life had been taken from her flesh, as if the ghost had somehow sucked on her energy. The fear she had felt, at that moment, and the look of triumph in the dead werewolf's eyes, it had been enough to trigger her scythe without her willing it. Before he knew it, the ghost had been beheaded cleanly, and Ariane had been catching her breath against a wall, unsure of what had really happened there.

Her left hand twitched at the memory. The reaper was more than certain this was why she had felt so sick when she had set foot into the ghost-invaded zone. That this was why whatever Silas had done, it could only be something bad.

She wasn't sure how, she wasn't sure why, but the Veil between the world of the living and Qetsiyah's afterlife hadn't only been ripped open, it had also latched onto her, a grim reaper. In the zone, life and death were converging, and she was the point of convergence. If what had happened with the ghost werewolf happened again, and she couldn't stop it in time...

Ariane wasn't sure the balance of these two layers would resist the damage.

And if that happened, there was no telling if the Veil could be put back into place.

The grim reaper barked at the bickering idiots.

“You don't get how terrible this is, do you?!? Not only do you have to deal with Silas, the first Immortal ever, and his insanely strong magic, but you also need to stay clear of the occasional stray ghost with a grudge, and you have to put the Veil back into place before it merges with the living world! All that, preferably without you dying in the process, since, you know, you'd end up trapped in the Veil like every other supernatural being!!!”

Alaric Saltzman, obviously, was right back to a grave face, so quickly Ariane hadn't even noticed him stopping his antics. She wasn't surprised, though. The guy was a Falkenbach, and she knew too well how this curse influenced a person. After all, the grim reapers had considered it their duty to know what one of them had unwillingly created.

Damon, on the other hand, only stared at her for a moment, before asking, almost tentatively:

“It can't be that terrible, can it? I mean, we've already dealt with a lot of shit over the years, and we're still alive... wait, here, more like, because seriously Ric, you could try harder...”

The vampire got a swat on the back of his head for that.

“Sorry. As I said, what's one more little catastrophe...?”

The glare Ariane gave him seemed to do the trick.

“...or maybe not. What did you mean by the Veil merging with the living world?”

Ah, so he had listened. And he had gotten directly to the worst part. Ariane guessed there was yet some hope for him. Maybe the vampire wasn't an utter idiot, but just an idiot. Who knew, really? Maybe there was a brain in there, hidden behind the dirty thoughts and the unwaranted snarkiness.

Maybe.

“It's a possibility. The layers of life and death are unstable, right now, and if a certain succession of events happens, the Veil could be destroyed, but while on the wrong side of the balance, and that not only here, but in the whole world. Its souls would be scattered on this side, in life, and well, you know what happens when a lot of angry ghosts gets resurrected permanently?”

Damon winced a bit.

“People die?”

“People get torn to shreds. And you still have to deal with Silas while avoiding all your old enemies.”

There, Alaric interrupted whatever it was Damon had been about to say, a hand on the vampire's shoulder. He looked calm... enough. More than Ariane had expected, even from a Falkenbach, but less than he would look if he had been ignoring his feelings.

Almost as if part of the problem had already been dealt with.

“Silas no longer is a problem. We got him back into mineral state, so to say, and as long as no one feed him blood, we should be safe. We plan to dispose of him in an inaccessible place as soon as the Veil is dealt with.”

Ariane felt her blood pressure, which didn't exactly exist anymore, but who cares?, dampen a bit. No insane Immortal with a death wish that might provoque the death of a few hundreds of people. At best. That was something she could appreciate.

But it didn't change the rest of the situation.

“That still leaves the invading ghosts who'd love to get your and you friends' heads on a pike.”

Ric turned to look at Damon, who already had his charming, if a little roguish, smile on.

“Well, you'll help us, won't you? You won't let them get to me, your old friend who is doing his best to undo whatever it is that Silas had planned to happen, will you?”

Ariane didn't look impressed.

Actually, she looked a bit green. Like she wasn't happy about it, but she was going to do something no one would like, because it had to be done.

“Sorry, Damon, but you are on your own this time. I'd like to help you, but I'm part of the chain of events that could lead to the merging. The best course of action is to leave town, and to leave the zone where the Veil has been dropped. If I don't, we risk having ghosts from all around the world running around. I can't risk that.”

The vampire reached for her and grabbed her arm gently.

“What do you mean, you are part of the chain?”

The grim reaper breathed deeply, eyes closed. She couldn't tell for sure, and she certainly wouldn't be able to forgive herself if it turned out she was wrong and Damon or any of the people she cared about got murdered because she wasn't here to defend them, but...

No, the risks were too big.

“Some... things happened, on my way here. I thinks I'm the first step. I'm naturally between the layers, but now there isn't an in-between, so... Let's say that if I came into contact with a being who is currently caught in the very same place as I live, ...things could happen.”

Immediately, Ric took a step back and away from the reaper. He had no desire to see what these “things” could be, and it was pretty obvious what Ariane had meant by a being caught in her domain. A material ghost. Just like him.

Ariane smiled weakly at the ghost, thankful for his understanding. It was simply too dangerous...

Damon, on the other hand, frowned.

“Things? We were talking about a chain of event, weren't we? So it's not a the-ghost-touch-the-reaper,-the-world-shatters, not right away at least...”

The grim reaper tried to shake her arm out of the vampire's grip, but she wasn't strong enough to do that. Maybe she'd have managed against a newly-turned vampire, or a werewolf, but Damon had around one century and a half behind him, and vampire strength went bigger with age. Grim reapers, on the other hand, were only at human peak strength. A third of a newly-turned vampire's strength. Ariane couldn't beat Damon in sheer strenght.

She almost growled her discontent.

“Damon, I really, really need to go. This event, the Veil being dropped this way, it never happened before. Even if there was a way to stop the chain of events once it has started, I wouldn't know what it is. I will not risk the coming back of a few thousands of souls. Not even for you.”

“But...”

The vampire's other hand clasped on her arm, and Damon was holding her back, almost pleading. Almost, because Damon Salvatore didn't plead. So, almost.

Alaric was about to say something, and keep Damon from being clingy, because well, that was definitely what was going on. Ariane needed to go, to get out of the zone where the Veil had been dropped, and that was it. She was right, Damon needed to let her go, and they were losing time...

But he didn't speak.

Ric didn't say anything, because something happened, and no one said a word.

As Damon had reached for his friend a second time, to beg, sorry, ask her very insistently to stay around and get rid of a few ghosts for them, because Damon Salvatore didn't beg, and you'd better remember that!, so, as his second hand had touched Ariane's arm, the nexus ring had started to shine.

Ariane's eyes widened. Something cold and crawling slithered by waves from the ring and into her skin, right where the two met. For a moment, she had the impression her metallic blood had been changed for iced water by the contact of the ring. Then the waves of cold fell back into the ring, but not without taking something with them.

It was exactly like when that werewolf ghost had touched her, only, worse. In a few seconds, it wasn't only her arm, but her heart, her head, her toes, her whole body that felt deprived of human warmth, just like a cadaver.

Ariane understood.

With the ghost, it would have taken much longer, and she had a feeling he wouldn't have been able to complete the transition from dead to living, permanently. In fact, she just knew it. Even with all the ghosts around, she would have been safer if she had stayed out of the boarding house, away from Damon, away from the nexus ring she had made herself. Sure, she might have been attacked by the ghosts, searching to steal her life force, but it wouldn't have ended the processus, it wouldn't have started the merging, because the ghosts out there had no anchor. Ariane was their door to another life, but they didn't have the key.

Damon had the key for Alaric to pass through.

Damon was the key for Alaric to pass through.

Maybe she should just summon her scythe, and kill the key. Her instincts had already kicked in, and because of their friendship, she had reigned them in, but really, maybe she shouldn't have. At least, if she had let it happen, she could have blamed it on her instincts.

Behind Damon, she saw Alaric's face twist, almost in pain, perhaps in glee. Something the ghost wouldn't have been able to control, even if he had wanted. Some instinct, for him too, to latch onto the life source Damon had unknowingly given him access to.

Despite feeling like a block of ice, or, really, more like a bloc of stone, which doesn't feel anything, Ariane turned, slowly, desperately, to look her friend in the eyes. Damon seemed frozen in shock, but he caught her glance, and eventually looked back at her.

Her lower jaw was hard to move. A bit as if the mechanisms were jammed. A bit as if she was a statue made of stone.

Stone statues aren't supposed to talk. Still, she would speak.

“Damon, you have to let go! The ring, with the blood of a dead, the blood of a being in-between, and the blood of a living, it's creating a brigde. It's anchoring Alaric back into life, and such a disturbance could start the merging of the Veil with the world of the living!!!”

If only she had understood that sooner...!

But while Ariane felt desperate, unable to move, unable to take the decision and kill her friend, while the world was hanging in the balance, the words rang into Damon's head.

It's anchoring Alaric back into life.

Even if he had wanted to, he couldn't have let go of Ariane's arm. He couldn't have stopped the nexus ring from touching the reaper's skin. He couldn't have moved away, and made it stop.

It wasn't even that he didn't want to move, or that he wanted Ric alive even to the cost of hundreds of possibly-murderous souls walking free from a scattered Veil.

It was simply that the thought of Ric, alive, again, had stopped him from thinking.

 


	25. In a very few words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand here cooomes another chaaapteer!

It was... overwhelming.

In fact, Alaric wasn't sure what it was exactly that he was feeling. It felt foreign, kind of, but he could still guess, somehow. Sure, it freaked him out a bit, now that he realized, but well. He could just tell that this foreign feeling was, in fact, life itself. There wasn't more strange than to realize you had forgotten how to be alive at some point, though.

He felt exactly the same, and yet, different. Becoming material again had only brought back his senses of touch, of smell, of taste. Senses that definitely belonged to a human being, but they were not what made a human being. Nor a living being.

That... That was different.

He felt whole again, in a very few words.

A very few words, because there wasn't time for him to think about it.

Ric did his best to cut out the strange feeling of extreme joy currently passing through his whole body. It wasn't something his brain had produced, because the ghost was still very focused on the enormous problem they were currently witnessing, and the possible Apocalypse/Armageddon/you-name-it that might happen as a result. It was something more... primal, perhaps.

It was his very being that rejoiced at being pulled out of death.

And it was impeding his ability to react, right now, and to possibly stop what was happening before it was too late. So he simply decided to forget about it.

To lock it away.

A Saltzman did not need a feeling of unknown origin, anyway.

Alaric took a deep breath, and pushed it away, with his very soul. A dozen of seconds passed... and his body was his again, and he could actually do something about the impending disaster.

Oh yes, he had heard Ariane's words, and he wasn't going to let the world end/implode/suffer-through-blood-and-virgin-sacrifices just for the chance to come back to life. He really wasn't worth such a castastrophe, what with his psychological issues, his supernatural family curse, and the new and surely terrible urges he'd have to deal with as a vampire. A vampire who couldn't even kill himself by, say, stepping in the sunlight without protection. A vampire he wasn't sure anyone would be able to control if he lost a marble at some point.

Besides, the grim reaper was friendly enough, and she seemed to suffer greatly from the process of his umpteenth return to life.

Actually, Ariane kind of looked like a chalk statue, right now. Powdery white, and easy to break.

Ric reached for Damon, grabbed his arm, and pulled. Strangely, the vampire who, though older, should have been way weaker than him, resisted. Damon seemed frozen too, his hand on Ariane's arm, his eyes on the nexus ring, his hope in his eyes. Both the vampire and the reaper were unmoving, and it sure started to worry Alaric. If he hadn't seen Ariane speak just a moment before, he'd think they had been turned to stone.

Silas was the only stone statue he wanted to deal with right now.

The air around the grim reaper thickened, and the ghost felt something switch in him.

It was now, or never.

“ _Damon...”_

His voice sounded strange, even to him. Nothing more than a raspy whisper. He had trouble moving. His muscles seemed... Yes, that was it, petrified. Just like the two other people in the room, he guessed. Whatever was happening with the nexus ring, with the Veil, with Ariane, it was causing this... Almost preventing them to stop it.

A slow and painful wince distorted Alaric's face, as he exaggerated the strength in his grip, and yanked Damon out of the way, and more importantly, away from Ariane.

Damon felt himself being torn away from his friend, from the door to Ric's life, from his only hope. He struggled, or tried to, because he couldn't move. But he was moved away, and it all stopped.

The vampire blinked. He had fallen on his ass, and he wasn't sure why, but he could feel someone under him, and... Damon turned his head around. Alaric was looking at him, a disturbed look on his face. For a moment, the vampire wanted to scream at his lover. They had been so close...

Then his eyes wnet back to Ariane, who had fallen to her knees, and looked more than ashen, her breathing short and ragged.

Worry got at him, and he felt a push from the ghost he had landed on.

Damon was a bit reluctant to move away from Ric, but hell, Ariane sure looked like he'd better take a look and see if she was alright. Not that there was a large chance for her to answer “yes”, considering how she looked. Although, usually, when someone asked that question... They rarely expected a positive answer anyway.

Nonetheless, the vampire got to his feet clumsily, noticed the world was waddling around him, and still, somehow, managed to get to his friend. Then he asked the question to which he already knew the answer, the question that always gets on everyone's nerves, the question that never got a positive and honest answer.

“You're okay, Ariane?”

The grim reaper started away from him, and scrambled to her feet. The look in her eyes was hurt, and Damon's heart wrenched when he realized this fear was directed at him, that he was the cause of her pain.

Deep inside himself, he knew it to be true, and he knew he wasn't feeling that much remorse. If he had managed to keep his hold on her for just a few more seconds... It only made it worse.

“What do you think?! You... you pulled all the life out of me, yet being what I am, I couldn't die!!! To a vampire, it would be comparable to desiccating! You, you did that to me, Damon! And worse, you were ready to risk the balance of the world for one single life!!! You are lucky your boyfriend managed to stop you right before it was too late!”

The vampire took a step back, his eyes flickering to Ric in despair. Just as he had guessed, it had been too soon. Ric wasn't...

Ariane gave the ghost an apologetic look.

“Alaric, I really can't say what will happen to you once the Veil is back into place. Theoretically, you're still a ghost, but you were one second away from crossing to the living side of things. I'm... not sure you still qualify as a full ghost, but you aren't alive either. You are likely to remain behind the Veil, though...”

Ric grimaced, but took it well enough, considering.

His life... no, wait, his lives and deaths, plural, tended to be shitty at best. You could say he had grown used to it. Not that he thought it something to be proud of.

“ _We'll see. It's not like I had much hope to come back to life, once again, anyway. I'm just relieved we didn't completely crack the world, despite Damon's foolishness.”_

The vampire's face darkened a bit at that, and he folded his arms around himself, as if to shield his decisions and actions.

“It's not as if I could really walk away either!!! Ariane, you were as frozen as I was, you know I couldn't...!”

The grim reaper interrupted her friend, an angry scowl on her face.

“That's not the question, Damon! The question is, would you have let go, if you had been able to?”

Damon didn't meet her gaze, and she sneered at him.

“Why aren't I surprised? I think I will leave town, now. You can call me back in a decade or two, maybe I'll be in the mood to listen to your excuses!!!”

Ariane stalked away, and Damon didn't do a thing to stop her. She did, however, stop. She looked directly at Alaric, ignoring her friend completely. Given the state she was in, and what Damon had caused, Ariane felt entitled to being very, very angry.

“Just so you know, Alaric: maybe the layers didn't merge completely, but what just happened? It was enough to crack the Veil where it hasn't been rendered inefficient, meaning, everywhere aside from Mystic Falls. You can be certain that a few overpowered dead witches took advantages of the situation and are now walking the earth again. Other supernatural beings can't do that, but passing through a crack? It's easy for a witch with enough back-up. I hope you'll have fun dealing with them, because me, I'm out!”

And she slammed the door shut, leaving the two others to stare dumbly at said door.

After a moment, though, Alaric turned his eyes back onto Damon, and eyed him with reproach.

The vampire scowled at him, disheartened.

“Oh, don't start with the lessons! I could have gotten you back permanently, and I was almost unable to move!!! It wasn't exactly easy to make a decision in a tiny twenty seconds time.”

The ghost sighed, but didn't start any lesson. Damon felt a new sparkle of hope and hid a small smile. Then Ric ruffled his hair, and the vampire scowled again.

“ _I suppose it wasn't easy. I just regret that the world can't ever go easy on us.”_

“You and me both, mate.”

Ric laughed sadly, and ruffled Damon's hair once more.

“Stop it, damn idiot!”

The ghost, who didn't feel much like a ghost anymore, and who could totally see what Ariane had meant earlier, winced as he stilled his hand, but didn't take it out of the raven hair.

What he was feeling right now, he had never had to experience it beforehand. Not... consciously, at least. The only times it had happened to him, just before his last death, he hadn't exactly been himself. So he didn't know what to do with himself, besides keeping his body occupied with something, anything, as long as it kept his mind off the throbbing pain in his throat, stomach, and guts in general.

Damon untangled himself from his lover's fingers. He turned around quickly, a growl at the back of his throat, but with surprise in his eyes. Something wasn't right with the ghost.

And the vampire didn't like it when something wasn't right with Ric. Considering it usually involved the hunter under the influence of the Falkenbach curse, or temporary death, Damon felt he had a right to be concerned.

The expression on Ric's face confirmed his suspicions.

“Is something wrong?”

What if, since Ric was once again stuck between life and death, what if, because he had failed to keep his hold on Ariane, things had gone from bad, as in dead, to worse, as in... Well, Damon wasn't sure what could be worse than Ric being dead right at the moment, but give him a moment, and surely he could come up with something. It couldn't be that hard, given what their daily lives were like. Something involving unending torture, quite possibly... terrible pains... or a bunch of other unpleasant things. Maybe even all those things at the same time.

Damon shook his head, willing the disturbing thoughts away.

Ric only gave him a blank look, as if he had no idea what this was about.

The vampire rolled his eyes, before making a head tilt towards the twitching fingers of his boyfriend.

“Man, you look like a junkie who didn't get his dose. And I'm pretty sure you didn't have access to any kind of... stuff while on the other side, so you can't possibly be an addict. You don't have the right personality, either. Kind of a drunkard, maybe, at times, but no drugs. So, what's wrong?”

Alaric winced, again, and went to hug Damon. He had missed having someone to care for him like that. Lately, it had always been him worrying about Damon...

The ghost breathed in the comforting scent of his lover. His body was almost mollified by the sole presence of Damon's against him. His mind certainly was pacified.

His gums, on the other hand...

Ric could feel the moderate heat coming from his vampire's body. It was nothing like a human's, sure, but it was Damon, so it called to him all the same. The loud sound of blood pumping right there, just under the skin where he had his nose... Ready for the taking.

The ghost opened his eyes, and he felt more like a vampire than a ghost, this time. The blue of his eyes was swimming into two dark red pools. He knew the veins under his eyes were overflowed with dark blood. He could tell his canines were already turning into fangs.

Damon's blood was calling to him.

For the first time since he was material again, the Original was experiencing the need to feed. Because he wasn't only material anymore, he guessed. He wasn't that dead anymore.

Ric nuzzled his lover's neck, while his fangs grazed the tender skin. In a whisper, he said it.

“ _I am thirsty, Damon”._

 


	26. Unusual propensity to die and get resurrected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you'll loke it.  
> If not, prove me otherwise.

There was a moment of silence.

Both had to process what it meant exactly, for Ric to be “thisty”. So far he hadn't been, because... Well, because he had been a ghost. And, Damon would bet the hunter was still a ghost, only more attuned to the livings, which made no sense at all. So, if Alaric needed to feed...

Oh hell, had Damon's actions condamned Ric to have needs despite being dead?!?

If that was the case, his lover was going to suffer for all eternity. As soon as the Veil would be back into place, he wouldn't be able to interact with the world. He wouldn't be able to feed, nor to die, and... He would probably desiccate until the end of time!

The vampire was about to speak up about that, and possibly to apologize for a few hundreds things he knew he shouldn't have done. Apologizing wasn't something he did very often, he wasn't even sure he had done it once in the last decade, but well. He was feeling like crap, right now.

“Ric, you...”

But before he could say more, Damon felt two sharp somethings break the skin of his neck.

It stopped him.

Reminded of the only time a vampiric Alaric had fed on him, he gasped a bit, but did not try to stop his boyfriend from quenching the thirst. Surely this wasn't Evilaric, just... a slightly disoriented Ric? Considering, you know, being-almost-alive-but-not-quite and all that.

Then the older vampire started to feel dizzy.

He pushed Ric back, just a bit. He knew that, had the Original wanted, he wouldn't have been able to do anything, so he took it to be a good thing that he could. It meant Alaric wasn't completely lost in bloodlust or whatever, that he wasn't going to be fed from until no blood remained in his body, or worse, until his head fell off. It was rare, but that happened, from time to time. Especially to Stefan's victims, when his little brother was in one of his cr...

Right. No thinking about beheading by too-enthusiastic biting.

Damon was almost convinced he heard Ric whine when he pushed him away.

“I don't mean to interrupt your date with my jugular, sweetheart, but I think we have some things to do. You know, you go to take Liz's place at the clearing, I go to make sure no one tries to behead Pouty, Barbie, Stefykins or Judgy during the ceremony, all that?”

Ric's eyes seemed a bit glazed, but soon it was gone. The hunter blinked, as if in surprise at his own actions. Then he shrugged. He wiped the blood off his chin, embarrassed, and took a step back.

The hunter tried to speak, but he found his throat suspiciously dry. He'd have thought that drinking blood would make that better, but apparently not. Hell, he wasn't even sure why he had been so transfixed with Damon's blood, just a moment ago. He might not remember the other time he had been alive, and a vampire, but still. He hoped all blood did not smell like that, because if it did...

He wasn't sure he could resist. There really had been something, like a pull he hadn't been able to throw off, even by being his usual inhuman self who didn't care at all for the needs of the body as long as he didn't get weakened for it.

His eyes wandered back against his will to Damon's throat, to the closed bite mark, still visible if only because of the blood smeared where he had bitten...

And oddly, he didn't feel the pull again.

Sure, the blood smelled nice, and he was certain he wouldn't mind getting more, but it was nothing unreasonable. It wasn't...

It was just blood, like before, when he was human, only he found he kind of liked it now. Just like when suddenly you find yourself wishing for a kind of food you had never really payed attention to before. He could tell it would do him good, to drink it, but... That was all, really.

What had it been about, then?

Alaric coughed once or twice, still blinking, and eventually cleared his throat loudly.

“I...”

He paused, dumbfounded. He brought a hand to his neck, just to make sure there wasn't anything strange with it. But no, no gash, no sore skin, no delicate throat. Not that he'd expected to find anything, because really? His voice sounded clearer than it had for months. More real.

Damon arched both eyebrows, a teasing smile on.

“What, the cat got your tongue? Or didn't you expect to be blood-craved like the others of us lowly vampires?”

Ric gave him the evil eye for no apparent reason, already heading for the door.

“Just go on and take care of the kids, will you?”

And he all but slamed the door.

Damon stared at said door for a good minute, bemused, before his cellphone rang. It sent him back into action. It was Stefan's number. So either his little brother was wondering why the hell he wasn't there for his... you know what, nevermind the number of this particular graduation ceremony... or something was wrong. Knowing his luck, it would be the former, but knowing Stefan, it could be the first. The kid sure knew how to bitch about things.

Not that Damon couldn't bitch about things either.

He did it often enough to certify he could do it just as well as his brother did.

Ric probably was grumpy about something he had said or done in the last days. The guy had been dead for quite some time, and perhaps he deserved to be cut some slack. Damon sure would be grumpy if he had had to watch things happen, people be killed, idiots be idiots without being able to do a thing about it. Actually, he guessed he'd be on a killing spree right now, if he had been in Ric's shoes. The hunter had changed him, but Damon suspected he would need a few more years with his lover before he became an upstanding blood-sucking citizen.

Good thing that Alaric would get to vent his anger some more this day. Damon had a feeling quite a number of heads would fall off before the end of the day, before Bonnie could put the Veil back.

Damon left the boarding house as he answered his phone, and so he missed the fact that Alaric hadn't left yet. The hunter was simply leaning against a wall, close to the front door. He seemed to try and control his breath, eyes closed, but listening.

Ric breathed out one last time as he finally heard Damon leave. He had calmed down, for now, but he had also discovered a few things, now that he wasn't overwhelmed by whatever had just happened.

Whatever being, most likely, his definitive coming back to life. Or, last-heard-of coming back to life, considering his unusual propensity to die and get resurrected.

He snorted a bit, and heard once again the sound of his voice.

He didn't feel, he didn't sound like he belonged to the Veil anymore. He was...

Alive.

For someone who died and got revived as often as he did, the hunter thought he shouldn't be that astonished anymore. It didn't stop him from feeling that way.

It made sense, though. What had happened with Ariane, almost pulling him back to life by using her life energy, had also been done with Damon as his anchor to the living side of the world. If anything could make him live once again, it made sense that it'd be drinking his anchor's blood. And as Ric hadn't really been anywhere after that, not in the Veil, not with the living, nowhere at all, he surmised his body itself, or maybe his subconscious, had pulled him to the only exit possible. Hence the urge to feed from his idiot vampire boyfriend.

Right.

He'd have to tell the guy, before Bonnie finished her spell, or Damon'd probably go crazy thinking of them being separated again. Damon and crazy didn't do well together. Most of the time, it caused a few death and a lot of tears.

Still, Alaric wasn't going to distract his lover now, because if he did tell Damon right away that Hey, surprise, he wasn't going to disappear (perhaps)!, he had a feeling the idiot would manage to get himself killed by being recklessly happy.

And, maybe, there was also the fact that despite his almost certitude, Ric wasn't absolutely sure to be alive again. Magic and whatnot's effects were not often that easy to guess, especially when the ones doing the guessing, here, himself, weren't witches.

The hunter knew many things about many subjects, but he couldn't say that witchcraft was something he had much knowledge on. He knew more than the average person who had no idea the supernatural even existed, but that was all.

If he was wrong, and he hadn't been resurrected at all, if the thirst for blood and his aching shoulder weren't about that...

He didn't want to say it out loud, and give himself hope. And he certainly didn't want to say it out loud, and give Damon a possibly false hope.

Because that'd suck.

Finally Alaric decided it was really time to go. Since they had first said they'd go their separate way to ensure nothing too dramatic happened because of the ghostly invasion, some time had passed, and yet he was still here. How much time had it been? Forty minutes? One hour?

Elizabeth Forbes would have liked to be present to her daughter's graduation ceremony. It would be selfish of him to leave her to behead a bunch of ghosts in a clearing any longer.

No, really.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he might have wanted to behead a few ghosts himself. He was pretty sure it'd be a therapeutic experience, though.

Ric blurred out of here, to be at the clearing as quickly as possible.

But he had only made it a dozen of meters away from the boarding house, when he felt the pain.

He wouldn't tell anyone this had happened, afterwards, because it surely had been ridiculous, even if he couldn't tell himself because he had... Well, because it had happened to him, and it isn't really possibly to witness your own misery, not in that way.

The fact was, he tripped as the burning pain tore his skin apart. And then he rolled over to the nearest tree. Finally he landed against the very tree.

Ric could swear he saw stars partying around his head, that day. That is, he would if he ever told anyone about what had happened. Which would not happen. He didn't want to speak of that. Ever.

It hurt. The hunter-turned-vampire/possibly-previously-a-ghost refrained from wincing, knowing it wouldn't do with the wounds on his face. It would only make it worse.

He was growing tired of major and/or painful wounds, that day. As if getting himself exploded because of a kamikaze hunter wasn't enough in one single day.

Alaric got back on his feet, and considered what he suspected to be the cause of his sudden pain. If that wasn't a proof he was alive again, he'd have to press charges. Against who, he wasn't sure, but he sure as hell wasn't okay with it if there weren't any positive effects. It hadn't happened when he was just a ghost, just like he hadn't needed to feed! If he had gotten all the bad sides of being alive, without actually being alive, he swore...!

Hum, apparently Damon would have to do as the accused. If his boyfriend had gotten him to live again, he was going to thank the vampire so much he would beg for him to stop, but if it wasn't the case... There would be hell to pay.

Anyway.

Ric walked until he reached the end of the tree's shadow, and reached out slowly.

An instant later, he hissed in pain, pulling his hand back to himself. Yep. No mistaking it.

He was burning with the sunlight. 100% vampire, 0% ghost. And no daylight ring.

Damnit.

Still, he wasn't going to give up on taking the sheriff's place chopping off heads. He was going to run through the pain and places without shadows, and he'd just be cranky enough, and fuming enough like literally, to really enjoy getting rid of the ghostly parasites... Repeatedly.

Oh, this was going to be one glorious afternoon!

Alaric took a moment to collect himself, already eyeing what he could see of the path that awaited him if he wished to get to the clearing. He noted the places where he'd be forced to run through the sunlight, the route he could take to avoid being fried to a crisp too often.

He wasn't stuck in the shadows because of the sun, like a normal vampire would be. It didn't mean he enjoyed feeling his own flesh burn up and burn out as soon as he got away from the shadows.

One moment he was here, and the next he had blurred through half the distance he had been able to see from the boarding house. He ran, and did his best, even if he wasn't used to it yet, to watch for shadowed parts as he ran. Then, finally, he walked into the clearing.

 


	27. Unusual tools

Alaric swore as, quite obviously he might add, walking right into the clearing had just set him on fire. He had not thought of this. Retreating to the shadows of the trees, the Original squinted at the light that was blinding him a bit.

After a few seconds, he wasn't inconvenienced anymore. He didn't like the effects that being a vampire had on his sight. Not yet, anyway. He didn't like it at all. Maybe once he'd be used to it...

But for now, the slightest change in lighting was enough to send his mind into a hopeless spiral. He hadn't had that problem when he had been dead, certainly because at the time, dead vampire or not, he had seen through the Veil, not normally. There was a certain atmosphere to it, a tone he couldn't quite describe, an ambient screeching in the silence. Things that had told him he had been dead.

No matter, he liked being a vampire better than being dead, for now. He'd rather be human, mortal, not condemned to the Veil at the end of his life, but well. You don't always get what you want.

He'd know.

A smirk grew on his lips, and Alaric mentally blessed Elizabeth Forbes, sheriff of Mystic Falls, because the woman had had the sense to move her prisoners in the shadows of two isolated trees, not quite on the side of the clearing. Going there would burn him, but he wasn't going to have to wait a few dozens of meters away and race back and forth to behead any ghost coming back to himself short of becoming a flaming torch.

Eh. Maybe it was Magdalena's idea, after all. His cousin had been the first on guard-and-beheader duty. Anyway, it worked for the best. And at least, that way, if anyone stumbled onto the clearing during the day, the first thing they'd see would hopefully not be a row of chained men and women on blood-soaked ground watched over by an officer of the law.

Oh God, Ric hoped no one had come around here, and seen that. Himself, Damon, Stefan, Caroline and Elena could compel anyone to forget, but neither the sheriff nor Mag would have been able to. The two women would have had to tie up the wanderer too, lest he went into town and started spreading rumors about the demented lawyer/sheriff.

The hunter used his enhanced sight to check out the “victims”. None was put apart from the others, and they all had their head choped off... Well, he guessed that meant no one had walked right into this madness. Or, if they had, they were as dead as the ghosts here, more so, even.

Seeing as he had no reason to believe either Mag or Liz Forbes had gone mental during the last hours, Alaric concluded nothing regrettable had happened.

Enough stalling. He took a deep breath, preparing himself to ignore the pain he knew would come.

He blurred to the two trees. The sun was burning his flesh, almost from the inside of his skin. He could feel a hole gnawing at itself in his left cheek. It wasn't something he liked. Only a few seconds to reach the sheriff and her prisoners, but it felt to him like days. Autocombustion did that to him, usually.

Then his skin stopped hissing an angry smoke, a blister blasted away on his forehead, and his blood actually managed to bleed down his face and hands without evaporating right away. Ric didn't think it should be something relieving, but hell, when had his life been normal?

Right, let's not answer that.

He stopped two feet after the limit of the shadows. His skin tingled a bit, yet, so he looked up. Well, the leaves weren't completely shadowing him. Here and there, there was a lone ray of light that passed through, but even then, the light was toned down enough that it barely made him wince.

Better than nothing, he guessed.

Alaric turned around.

Something much more dangerous than a wandering spot of light amongst the dense leaves greeted him, and he ducked without even thinking about it. Of course, it wouldn't have actually done any lasting damage, but still. Getting shot in the head at point blank wasn't something he'd enjoy, he guessed. And he didn't intend on finding out.

“Wait, sheriff! That's just me, Alaric.”

Liz Forbes squinted at the newcomer, who had his back to the sun, and recognized Alaric Saltzman. She sighed, and put her gun away.

“Sorry. A ghost-werewolf strolled in half an hour ago, and well...”

The woman gestured vaguely to a poor ghost whose head had been blown apart not so long ago.

Ric arched both eyebrows, and whistled.

“I don't think he had expected this. Anyway, I'm here to take charge. The graduation ceremony should start soon, you should go. Caroline may be a vampire now, but she's a eighteen years old vampire, and she just finished high school. I'm pretty sure she'd want you to be here.”

He glanced at the several bodies around them. There were seventeen ghosts, apparently, and he recognized at least eight of them. He wasn't quite sure if the blond without a face over there was actually who he thought he was. And he didn't want to know why the ghost didn't have a face anymore. He suspected it had something to do with getting shot down or up the face from too close.

“Even with a ghostly invasion going on.”

The sheriff laughed drily, and handed him a bloodied machete.

“It works wonders. I'm considering adding it to the official uniform of the sheriff department.”

It wouldn't be such a bad idea, actually, but Alaric guessed she'd have a hard time explaining it if someone asked. Keeping the supernatural under wraps really was taxing, sometimes.

The sheriff left, and Ric remained. He sighed loudly, and went to sit down against a tree trunc. When a head magically disappeared and reappeared on its original body, he would get up and chop it off again, mostly ignoring the shouting and other unpleasant words he got showered in with some prisoners. It wasn't like he was the one attacking people in the street for revenge, or worse, for no reason.

The work out was pleasant.

Then he picked up a voice, far away, that he knew not to come from the prisoners. For a moment, he considered blurring over there and compelling whoever it was to back away and go sight-seeing somewhere else. But he heard some special words, and recognized the voice.

Alaric tensed. He stood up. Better be prepared, just in case.

“Don't worry about it. We still have a few minutes to get to Caroline's graduation ceremony, and the smell of blood over here is so strong I can't ignore it. I don't want a slaughter happening today, when I've come to see her.”

So, no scandal for Caroline's graduation. Alright. They could work on that. Hopefully, he'd just see what the blood was about, assume the hunter was just another ghost protecting his living friends, and walk by. They hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms, but well. Alaric had an excuse, Esther-shaped.

Klaus walked into the clearing. His eyes zeroed on him. Surprise!

Ric felt his throat going dry. He did so not want to see the Original Hybrid right now...

In the blink of an eye, the hybrid was next to him, wariness obvious in his stance.

“What the bloody hell is the meaning of this?”

Alaric shrugged slightly.

“Ghost invasion. These lovely fellows were munching on the people, so we... put them in the corner, I'd say. It should be dealt with by tomorrow, and for now, I'm on guard duty, considering I would be hard to kill... again.”

Before Klaus could say anything, the hunter added:

“I think Damon and Stefan woud appreciate some help watching over the graduation ceremony. Just in case a few of our dead enemies tried anything, you know?”

Concern immediately appared on the Original Hybrid's face. A body twitched a bit, probably about to come back to life. Klaus kicked it in the stomach. Then he looked back at the other Original; the only one who wasn't part of his family. He didn't seem to be totally convinced, but well.

The hunter shrugged again, his hands parted from his body as if in helplessness.

“I swear, I'm 100% sane, 0% psychopath. Death cured me, I suppose. Also, Caroline wasn't exactly expecting you to show up, but I'm certain she'll be delighted. Especially if you manage to save her life once more before the end of the day.”

The look Klaus gave him was suspicious at best, but the older fanged-and-very-dangerous-guy didn't try to rip his heart out of his chest or anything like that. Alaric decided to see that as positive. They managed to act civil towards each other. One point for civilisation.

Klaus turned back to the kid who had followed him but not said a word. A teen, probably, just under twenty, perhaps. Or just above, if he looked young. It could happen. Probably a vampire, too, or perhaps a werewolf. As long as he didn't try to attack anyone, Alaric saw no reason to act unfriendly.

Good thing, considering what Klaus had in mind.

“You stay here, and wait for me. You can help dealing with the ghosts, too. That way at least we'll be sure these particular fiends won't be the one to ruin the party.”

And Klaus disappeared. The hunter raised an eyebrow at the kid, and walked over to the twitching body. The head had almost finished reforming. It wasn't quite that yet, but...

“Looks like you've been ditched, kiddo. I suppose the Big Bad Wolf wanted to see Caroline without you hovering in the background.”

Ric looked at his machete with appreciation. The blade hadn't even started to dull, despite being used to behead a bunch of monsters several times since the day before. He was almost certain it was Magdalena's. This woman had unusual tools, for a lawyer, in her suitcase.

Then again, he himself had unusual tools, for a teacher, in his apartment.

The kid was averting his eyes from the bodies. If he was a vampire, he had to be young, because rare were the vampires who flinched at the sight of blood. Damon usually said a fifth of them were named Stefan. Maybe the kid was a witch? After all, when Klaus had first come into town, it had been with his personal coven.

“I didn't know there were ghosts...”

Not a witch, then. They all knew about the Other Side, the Veil and what a supernatural being became after their death.

“They are the spirits of the supernatural beings who didn't pass on. Here, a lot of them hold a grudge, that's why they are a pain in the ass. Usually they can't manifest. But a powerful witch, with the right tools, and at the right time, can make them appear. Make them material. And since they are already dead, you have to keep on killing them to incapacitate them. That's what I'm doing right now. Making sure they don't go off and kill my friends, or innocent people.”

The head was finally back into place, whole and ready to be cut off, again. Ric would have liked it if he had had the chance to do that with Connor Jordan, too, but the guy had been kind of too much blown to bits the first time around, so the three officers who knew about the supernatural other than the sheriff hadn't been able to get him here. The Original didn't like to think of the crazed hunter running around Mystic Falls, but what could he do?

Apparently he'd have to do with beheading Vaughn instead.

The other hunter opened his eyes suddenly, and bristled when he realized he couldn't move, chained up. Magdalena hadn't wanted to have to run after her prisoners, if they got revived without her noticing right away. Alaric could understand that.

“You! Let me go, right now! I have a mission to accomplish. The likes of you are all monsters, but Silas is the worst! It is my duty to rid the world of his being!!!”

Ric's face morphed into a frightening smile, too thin and too large to be honest.

“Not that I disagree about Silas being a monster, Vaughn, but we already took care of him. Now, you see, I don't like being called a monster, not any more than the average guy, at least, and I am already quite angry.”

The Original put the edge of his machete on the hunter's neck, and crouched down a bit.

“You see, I've been resurrected a fair share of times. But I've also spent the last months on the Other Side, with the like of us monsters. And now I came back to life, and definitely, not like the rest of you material ghosts, one more time. But, try to understand. Even before being turned, I was a cursed man. A perfect killer, whether I wanted to be so or not. And being stuck in the Other Side...”

His smile disappeared, leaving his face cold and emotionless.

“It was infuriating. And at the same time, it felt like home.”

Alaric stood up again, and raised the machete high above his head. There was no asking what for.

“And guess what, hunter of the Five? I miss home.”

The blade sliced through air, and then through flesh. A head fell. The kid turned slightly green.

 


	28. A hassle to handle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there will be one more chapter to this part, and then you'll have to wait for me to sort out part 4, "Under pressure"
> 
> Also, I've been waiting for a long time for this to happen.
> 
> And my thirteen years old dog has a tumor. He's a red cocker spaniel I've had for twelve years and a half. There's nothing to be done, the tumor is too big. We'll have to put him to sleep. My mom already did that once with her german sheperd, before I was even born. Why can't we have dogs who just die in their sleep?

Connor Jordan may be a bastard, according to some, but no one had ever accused him of being a fool.

Unlike the others ghosts, he had stood apart and watched, when they had gone after the Mystic Gang. He wasn't against killing them, quite the contrary, but they weren't his target that day. He had a much bigger mission to accomplish. Him, and the other hunters of the Five. He had been surprised to see only a few of his Brotherhood had held on until this day on the Other Side, but he guessed even supernaturally obsessed people could somehow find peace after a few centuries. And there was also the fact that the others could very well be somewhere else, outside of the Expression Triangle.

Connor had been right to stay out of the ghosts' revenge, after his first... exploding attempt. Qetsiyah had been painfully clear. His mission wasn't to end every vampire on earth, this time, but to get rid of the Immortal, Silas, by curing him. In a way, the hunter could understand the witch's opinion. Silas couldn't reproduce like vampires did, but he was still a blood-sucking monster. And one who had way too much power at hand.

The ghost watched, discreetly hiding under the bleachers, as Klaus Mikaelson came around and got temporarily rid of all the ghosts around. Connor knew from first-hand experience that it wasn't a good idea to get killed, even as a ghost. It'd take too much time to come back to “life”, and he had no time to lose. Any minute passed without consciousness was a chance for his current target to get out of reach.

The dead hunter squinted at the figure of Damon Salvatore, bloodied hands, and the cadaver of a ghost at his feet. His target was standing just here, only a few dozens of meters away.

But he couldn't make his move right away. Trying to abduct the vampire right now, even with a gun loaded with wooden bullets that had been dipped into werewolf's poison, would be stupid. Half the monster's monster friends were around, and the Original Hybrid was there too.

Connor may be dead, but he wasn't suicidal for all that.

Again, getting killed would make him waste time.

He waited a bit, and was rewarded with the sight of the group dissolving. The hybrid and the blonde vampire left on their own, while the other teens went to... well, he had no idea. That left Damon Salvatore and the town's sheriff, staring in annoyance at the numerous bodies of people who had already been dead, even before getting killed. If the hunter had allowed himself to have feelings, he might have felt sorry for them. It really looked like a hassle to handle.

Connor focused, and managed to hear something that sounded like “I'm going to call for the deputies.”. It made sense. The sheriff would have have a hard time taking care of all these bodies on her own, or even with the vampire's help. And if she knew about the supernatural, it wouldn't be so surprising if some of her men did too.

This whole town was obviously infested by the supernatural, and apparently some of the inhabitants had known for some time already.

Anyway, it worked in the hunter's favor.

The sheriff left, and there was only Damon Salvatore left. Connor fiddled for a moment with the Cure, hidden in his pocket, before finally making his move. The Salvatore brothers were the ones who had taken the Immortal away...So he would just ask, nicely at that, where to find Silas.

In a swift move, the ghost got out of his hiding place. The vampire turned around at the sudden noise. Connor threw a knife at Salvatore's back before the vampire could see him properly.

Damon felt something pierce his jacket, and a burning sensation suddenly overrode all his other senses. It took him less than three seconds to recognize the unpleasant feeling of vervein scorching at his skin and flesh, burning it away repeatedly, almost faster than he healed. It wasn't quite the same pain as when he had tried to burn himself by sunlight, one year ago. He still had his ring on.

The vampire blindly reached at his own back, searching for whatever it was that had injured him, and had let the vervein in. In another situation he could have easily known if it was a blade or a bullet, but the burn of the vervein blurred all his other senses.

He had fallen to his knees, and was barely able not to just go head first to the ground.

Luckily, he had started to drink vervein some time ago already. It hadn't made him immune, far from it, but at least it protected him from the Originals' compulsion. As there was only Rebekah left in town, he hadn't taken any lately, but he still was used to the effects.

Already his sight was getting better. He was light-headed, and he couldn't really see traight ahead. There was less vervein in this shot than in Elena's, luckily. What was the deal with people and vervein, today? They were all out for his blood, or what?

His hand touched something cold, and Damon managed to get a grip on the handle of some knife. At the same moment, he recognized the vaguely blurred face of Connor Jordan, vampire hunter extraordinaire, and currently a ghost.

Go figure. If someone was to take him down with a verveined knife, who else could it have been?

Though it seemed a bit strange. Why hadn't the ghost killed him already? Did he want to know something?

When the hunter spoke, his voice echoed a bit to Damon's addled sense of hearing.

“ _Long time no see, Salvatore. Though, I've been watching you and your gang, even from the Other Side. I have to admit you know how to blend in, for a monster.”_

Damon snorted, or at least he tried to. He wasn't sure a snort was supposed to sound like that, but unfortunately, he was in no state to do any better.

“So you're a stalker ghost. Wonderful. You should put it on your CV. Oh, wait, you're dead.”

Jordan ignored the bait. Instead, he crouched down, so Damon was better able to see the man's face.

“ _But no matter how many people you guys don't kill, there are always one or two people who suffer from your very existence. If I didn't have a more important matter to attend to, I'd cut your head off here and now.”_

“Happy to feel loved. And no, I don't care what Vaughn and you other Brotherhood of the Five Knuckleheads want to do with Silas and the Cure. We took care of Silas. You don't have to un-immortalize him.”

The black man gave him a hard stare, and Damon knew it wouldn't be that easy. It never was, especially not with people as obsessed as Connor Jordan had been.

The vampire hunter grabbed him by the shoulder, and pulled up. Before he could tell how or why exactly, Damon was on his two feet, his legs wobbling dangerously, and a gun at his back. Probably poisoned bullets, at that. Oh man... Why did the world hate him so much?

Jordan pushed him to walk, holding strongly onto his arm. The ghost was probably all that was keeping Damon upright, because his whole body really felt like jello. Slightly self-combusting jello, with the vervein in his system, but jello nonetheless.

Very attractive jello, too.

Not that Ric was anywhere around to see his jello boyfriend wobble around. A shame. The Original would have taken care of the ghost in a blink, like last time. Jordan sure looked like he wouldn't pay attention to anyone else than Damon right now, not before it was too late for him anyway.

“ _You're going to show me where you guys 'stashed' the Immortal. I have the Cure on me, and I just have to give it to him, then gank his sorry ass. Don't worry, you are next in line.”_

Oh, but Damon did worry. He didn't want his perfect ass to be ganked. He had a lot of things he wanted to do with his perfect ass.

But even if Jordan did not gank his perfect ass, he realized sadly, the only person he wanted to do these things with was not around either. Not for long, if anything. The vampire doubted he'd get another... great time with his lover before the Veil fell back into place.

Maybe it was the vervein making him moody, but Damon felt like pouting at the ghost.

The hunter yanked at his arm, and they started walking, or, really, wobbling for him, out of here. Jordan pressed the gun more firmly against Damon's back.

“ _You don't get a choice, pretty boy. I'm sure you don't want to see for yourself what werewolf poison do to a vampire.”_

Damon tripped on a root.

“Done that already. It didn't stick around.”

The ghost said nothing to that, and only pushed him harder. Damon wasn't happy with the situation, but what could he do? He guessed the best was to lead the crazed hunter to the place where they intended to get rif of Silas, but where they hadn't yet, because well, no time and all that. It would take some time, and while Jordan would be busy being led around, he wouldn't be threatening someone else. Beside, it wasn't as if Damon had much to live for. If the ghost shot him once he understood what was really going on, so be it. The vampire had lived already, and while he'd like to continue to watch over the kids, he was certain they could manage without him.

As the ghost and the vampire slowly left the football field, two people arrived at the scene by the other side. They saw the bodies of the ghosts, and the guy who was pushing another one around.

They shared a look of concern, and quietly made their way through the field to follow the two men.

They had been searching for Damon, and had encountered the girls on their way. Elena had been surprised, but happy to see them. They had quickly explained that a woman had somehow gotten them out before leaving town, and Bonnie had told them it was probably Ariane, a grim reaper. Apparently, she had some control over souls, being what she was. Bonnie had talked about them to her... Perhaps the reaper had wanted to do them a last favor before leaving. Or at least had tried to, and it had worked. The two were quite pleased with the results. They wouldn't complain, because, really, while they hadn't been dead, they hadn't been in the world either. It was good to be out.

One of the two particularly enjoyed the sunlight. Back there it hadn't been the same. It had been sunlight, but not like that.

A ghost would say the Other Side wasn't just another layer of the world, because there was something different, some underlying and ubiquitous noise in the background, something wrong with the light. Where they had been, it was kind of the same, just not in the same way. No background sounds, no faulty light, true, but nothing had ever really felt alive. They had been completely alone. It had been a bit like living in a painting. The other characters can't see you, they don't move, and if you move around them, you notice they are blank on the other side. They are nothing but a copy of the real world.

At least they had been together. But still, after some time, it had been boring. Depressing. They might have ended their days, at some point, hadn't they been there, had they been able to. Of course, hadn't they been there, they wouldn't have had a reason to kill themselves, considering they would either be in the real world, or, more probable, they'd be dead.

Damon had saved them, unwittingly, perhaps, and not in a way anyone would have wished for, but he had saved them, by getting them in their prison. And they were his friends. They didn't intend on letting him be manhandled by anyone. Except Saltzman, perhaps, considering they didn't really have a right to say anything about what happened in the bedroom, but either way...

Maybe this time, it was finally their turn to save their friend.

Both knew they couldn't just waltz in between the man and the vampire and get the bad guy off their friend. It didn't work like that. They knew the black man was at least a hunter, if not more, and it was propable his gun wasn't loaded with just anything. Moreover they were mortal, and not particularly strong or quick. They had other abilities, true, but none that would be helpful here.

Getting themselves killed wouldn't help Damon much.

Once upon a time, one of the two might have had a chance, but now...

They followed the man and the vampire to a car. They almost panicked, realizing they wouldn't be able to follow them if the man decided to drive, but the youngest of the two had an idea. They hurried to the car, to get there before the man drove away.

Just before leaving, Connor Jordan looked around one last time. He had stuffed the vampire on the passenger seat, before giving him another shot of vervein, and didn't particularly want someone to come around ad ask if his “friend” was feeling ill.

He thought he had seen someone walk behind in car, and cursed under his breath. It really wasn't the moment. But when he walked around the car, gun in hand, no one was there to be seen. Maybe it had only been his imagination. Or his paranoia, really.

The two sighed. He hadn't seen them.

The man drove to a quarry, and he and Damon walked to the water. Knowing they couldn't come just from behind him, they moved around the quarry, and looked deeply into the water reflections.

Damon could feel his last moment coming, as Jordan threatened him one more time.

Then, something burst out of the water behind the ghost, grabbed the hunter, and pulled him under.

 


	29. To come back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of One world apart, guys.

Damon stared, wide-eyed, at the place Connor Jordan had been standing, only a few minutes before. The place where four hands had appeared and grabbed the ghost. Just in front of the clouded water where the ghost had been pulled under.

The vampire wasn't sure exactly of what had happened. He only knew he had gotten Jordan to a small beach of the quarry, on the other side of where they had intended to get rid of Silas, later. He had been expecting to be shot, probably with werewolf-poison-laced bullets, and to die like that. Or maybe he'd have been able to save himself at the last minute. It didn't really matter, at this point.

What mattered was that he hadn't expected some unknown beings to draw the ghost underwater and save his life in the process. What mattered was that he had no idea who and what were the people who had saved him.

His mind was unclouding a bit, and he managed to stand upright without his abductor's help, for once. Not that he had an abductor anymore. Wary, he took two steps back from the shore. Just in case. Because they had taken care of Jordan didn't mean they were here to save him.

After a minute or so, Damon wasn't sure, because he was still under the influence of the vervein, the water shimmered, and all of a sudden, two women emerged from it. Their soaked clothes and hair were falling all over there features, which didn't seem to please them. One had short, dark brown hair, the other had blondish brown hair. There was definitely something familiar with them, but right now Damon couldn't say what.

They were also bleeding in several places, as if they had been cut all over their body. It didn't seem to be a pleasant experience. The vampire would know, actually.

They had yet to look at him.

“I'm not ever doing that again! Not. Ever. Again!!!”

“Well, it worked, didn't it?”

“Yes, but it's not a mirror. It's water. The reflections are fragmentary at best! Meaning, we were fragmentary too! Did you even look at your wounds?”

Oh. He knew these voices. He had no idea how it was possible, but he knew these voices. He knew these women.

Even if they weren't supposed to be here.

Not that he'd complain.

Damon felt his balance shift for some reason, and almost landed right back face in the ground. Two hands got a hold of him before that happened. He didn't fall.

Andie helped her friend to stay up as she could, while Rose slapped him back and smacked him forth. Not too hard, obviously, but hard enough to keep him awake. It wasn't as if any damage would last on his vampire body, anyway. Rose may not be a vampire anymore, but she hadn't forgotten what it meant to be one.

“Eh, no point in doing that... That guy almost roofied him with vervain. We'll just get him into the car, and drive back to Mystic Falls. With a bit of luck, he won't be out of it much longer.”

Damon tried to say something, but he felt bad. Very bad. He had no recollection of reacting like that to vervein, not even once. Maybe Jordan had added things to the plant. Who knew, there could be another plant that made it more effective...? Or maybe it was because he was getting verveined too often lately. Though he was pretty sure to have known worse...

No words got past his mouth, only a disgusting gurgle. He stopped trying.

Rose tore her eyes away from her drugged friend, and laughed a bit.

“Damon Salvatore speechless. That's a new one.”

Andie sighed, looked at herself, and mourned her clothes. She only hoped they wouldn't get anyone's attention on the way back, because they sure didn't look like normal citizen right now. Herself, she had disappeared something like one year ago, almost. They were covered in small injuries, soaked to the bone, Damon looked like he had been roofied, and the car wasn't theirs. What could go wrong?

“Let's go to the boarding house. It's not right in the middle of town, so there's that, at least. Maybe no one will see us. And I'm pretty sure we could borrow decent clothes from Damon, even if it won't be our kind of things.”

Rose agreed, and let Andie drive. She hadn't had the possiblity to do much driving, when she had been a vampire, because it needed her to have tinted windows on the car, which was rarely hers to begin with. And Trevor had been the one enthusiastic to learn.

When they got to the boarding house, there was absolutely no one around in the neighborhood. Better for them, they guessed. They dragged the inconscious vampire inside, and let him on the nearest sofa. Rose had completely forgotten how heavy things could be to human beings.

Considering they were human. Neither Rose nor Andie would have bet on that, not with what they could do, now. They didn't know how much they could do, actually, but they knew no human could do that...

Now, the question was, were they human nonetheless, like witches and doppelgangers, or were they just something else, like werewolves?

A door creaked on the first floor, and the two women looked up, wary. Damon didn't usually invite his enemies in, but these enemies didn't always wait for his authorization either.

Who they saw immediately calmed them. Not that looks couldn't hide power, but because the red-headed woman was looking at them with bleared eyes. She was obviously wounded, if the white-turned-reddish bandage on her leg said anything. She wasn't a vampire, of that they could be sure.

Bleared or not, the woman's eyes flashed with recognition when her eyes landed on Damon. In a moment she looked alert. She walked down the stairs as fast as she could, and joined them.

“What happened?”

“A psycho got him, possibly in the spine, with a vervained blade. He should be fine soon enough.”

The red head almost rolled her eyes, and sat down in an armchair. She looked exhausted.

“What else is new? I take a werewolf bullet in the leg for him this morning, and he gets himself stabbed with vervein this afternoon! Did you save his life too? This guy can't take care of himself...”

Rose and Andie stared at the woman in surprise, reconsidering her wound under a new angle, but a chuckle kept them from saying anything.

“Men in general can't take care of themselves, it's not only me, Magdalena.”

They all turned around to look at Damon, who was finally awake. He was pale, and didn't look like he'd stand up any time soon, but knowing him and his vampire cheating body, he'd be on his two feet before an hour. Rose swatted him on the head, just on principle.

“Don't you dare do us such a fear again, fool.”

The vampire only smiled weakly. Then his brow creased, and he took a better look at the three women. Two of whom he was certain weren't supposed to be here.

“Weren't you...?”

Andie sat down, relieved, and smiled at him. It was weird to see her smile when she was covered in small amounts of blood here and there. Andie had never been the one Damon would have pictured tangled in the supernatural, not even after he had gotten her in it.

“You friend, Ariane. She found the mirror a few days ago, and she took it without telling you, just in case there was nothing to do. She showed it to a witch friend out of town. Together they found out how to get us out, she came back to where our accidents had happened, and well... Here we are.”

Damon noted in a corner of his mind to thank Ariane again for what she had done when he'd see her. Then he remembered that once more, she wouldn't want to see him before a few decades. He felt strangely guilty for what had just happened with the reaper, but said nothing of it.

“And... you saved me?”

The two women shared a look before answering.

“Yeah. We saw that guy take you out of the football field, and we followed.”

Something didn't add up. If the two had seen him so soon, why hadn't they intervened? Not that he wished they had, because none of them had any idea of how dangerous Connor Jordan was, but still, it would have been logical to take care of things sooner, from their point of view.

“Coudn't you have just broken his neck or somehing, Rose?”

She looked uneasy for a moment. Then she gestured at herself, at her bruised and battered body. Damon suddenly understood what wasn't right with her. He had no idea of how it had happened, but there was no denying it.

“You're not a vampire anymore.”

He had said it flatly, a bit of surprise failing to be heard in his tone, but his lack of apparent reaction saying enough.

Rose nodded, but Andie was the one to talk.

“We're not sure we are human either, you know. When your friend pulled us out of the mirror, she told us we wouldn't be the same as before, and she was right. Somehow, it's as if we still have the potential to be inside reflections, if you see what I mean. We didn't actually follow the car when you went to the quarry; we crossed into the wing mirror, and we let that guy drive us too. Then when we pulled him under, we were in fact in the reflections of the water, and we crossed back into this world.”

Rose put her left arm nearer, and Damon could see that her wounds looked more like the body had been folded unnaturally. The skin was bruised under the pressure, and the skin seemed to have cracked open, not to have been cut.

“That's why we're in this state. Reflections on water aren't flat or unique, and well... I won't be doing that again any time soon. Consider yourself lucky we had no idea of what it'd do to us.”

“Nah, you'd have saved me anyway.”

Damon was teasing her, and Rose pouted, as if to say “we'll see”. Still, knowing he was the reason they were both in this state, the vampire couldn't help but to offer some of his blood.

“Maybe it won't work. It doesn't work on werewolves.”

“Let's try anyway.”

Two minutes later, Andie and Rose were in perfect shape, forgetting the fact that they looked like refugees from Katrina right after the storm, who'd have been rescued after their house had fallen on them. Magdalena left to get them some feminine clothes, while they were taking a shower. They needed it.

Damon stayed on the sofa for a time. He still wasn't alright, but he wasn't feeling bad either.

After one quarter of hour of doing absolutely nothing, his phone rang. He idly wondered what was taking the girls so much time to get clean, but let go of that thought when he saw the number calling him. In less than a second, he was talking to Alaric.

“Is something wrong?”

“ _How sad is that, that whenever someone call, our first question is if something went awry?”_

Damon's latest feeling of fear dissipated. Still, he was a bit anxious. He had just gotten back two of his best friends, but now he couldn't forget that Alaric, him, would leave again. The nexus ring had reacted when he had held onto Ariane: the center stone made of their mixed blood had somehow evaporated into nothingness. The vampire doubted it was still good for anything.

“Very sad. So, I guess everything is alright?”

“ _Hum, yeah. No problem. Just...”_

Someone grunted in the background, and Damon heard Ric curse under his breath. The next moment, their was the sound of a sharpened blade cutting into flesh, and something heavy was smashed on the ground. Or maybe it just fell heavily, the vampire wasn't really sure.

“ _...Sorry. An hybrid was waking up. So, I was saying. I...”_

There was a pause, as if Alaric was holding his breath, unable to speak for a time.

“ _I'm pretty sure drinking your blood got me back amongst the living, Damon.”_

The vampire dropped his cellphone at the news. He stared at it for a dozen of seconds, and finally managed to take it back into his hands. He fumbled a bit with his words after that, though.

“You... you... you're certain?”

Alaric paused dramatically on the other side of the communication. It was likely he wasn't doing it on purpose, true, but Damon's heart raced nonetheless.

Finally there was an answer, not as definitive as the vampire would have liked, but good enough for now. Anyway, they'd know soon enough...

“ _There's no way to be certain, Damon, but I don't feel like I'm on the other side anymore.”_

Damon spent the rest of the day in euphoria, waiting for Ric to come back when things would have ended. When Elena called, saying Stefan wasn't answering, he told her he was just busy with Silas.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next part will most likely be named "Under pressure".  
> It will be the most AU part of this story, even considering that every part is more AU with the changes from the preceding parts of the story. Like, I'm going to completely erase some things, not just to change them. I will be adding some other things. OCs, stories... like always, I suppose, just, more.  
> As a consequence, it may take me more time to correctly plan out part 4. I can't say.
> 
> Also, meanwhile I will be posting a short(er) story, seven chapters, possibly once a week. If we're lucky, I'll be ready to start part 4 once that story ends.


End file.
